Cell Phone Question
 

We are going to be traveling in Ireland for a couple of weeks on a tour along with another couple. We each have a temporary international calling plan with our carriers for use while we are out of the country.

My question (and it's probably a dumb one) is when we are in Ireland and want to call the other couple's US cell phone number, how is it done? We've never been in this situation before and I have no clue!

You will be roaming on an Irish carrier (unless you are using say internet calling and are on wifi but most likely not). Therefore you will dial 00 (international code) 1 (the country code for the United States and Canada) area code and number. Thusly "+" key substitutes universally for the international prefix. Thus you could dial +1 212 555 1212.

To call within Ireland, you do not need the international code or the Irish country code...you would dial 0 followed by the number. To call say the United Kingdom you would dial +44 (the country code for the UK) followed by the number omitting any leading "0".

When roaming abroad on cell network, your phone behaves as if it is a local phone for OUTGOING calls. You follow exactly what locals using local Irish phone with Irish SIM would do for outgoing calls even when you are using a home country phone with home country SIM. That is why you need to go through the Irish outgoing international call process as noted above to call a US number.

HOWEVER, if your phone does WIFI calling, the process is different. While on WiFi, your phone behaves as if you have never left the US. There is NO country location identity when on WiFi for this purpose. A big gotchas is if you call an Irish number while on Wifi calling. You are doing a US to Ireland international cell call = $$$ ouch!

So if I understand this correctly, if we dial our friend's US cell phone number while in Ireland, we need to do it as if we are making an international call from Ireland to the USA using 001 + area code and phone number.

To call a local number in Ireland, it's just a 0 + phone number.

Right?

Does that plan you got include free texting? If it does why bother calling them?

If you have an unlocked android phone go to Tesco, get one sim card load with €15 credit that gives you a data and call package. then buy a basic phone with a sim and €10 credit total costs €40 and you and your others have free calls to each other, a Data package and if you want to call back to the US 1 cent per min. http://www.tescomobile.ie/

What kind of phone? Some phones (e.g. Android) have automatic "assisted dialing" - mine did, anyway, so when I was in Europe, I could call my contacts without adding any prefix; the Dialer app in Android did it for me automatically.

If it's a smart phone, install Google Hangouts (and also Google Hangouts Dialer with Android) to make free calls to US phone numbers - well, free on WiFi, use-of-mobile-data if not on WiFi. Works even to landlines.

Dukey, we get 100 "free" texts with this plan from Verizon along with the minutes and data we are getting so we probably will text them. Does texting work differently than phoning?

Andrew, DH has an Android smartphone. I'll ask him if he knows about the assisted dialing and Google Hangouts. Thanks.

Tony2phones, we are using DH's phone and a $40 (one time charge for one month) Verizon international plan that gives us 100 sent messages, unlimited incoming messages, and 100 MG data allowance.

We plan to utilize the free WiFi in our hotels as well.

Thanks to everyone for helping me understand this!

Wow, Verizon's international roaming plan is still insanely expensive:

https://www.verizonwireless.com/solu...tional-travel/

100MB per month data allowance then $25 per 100MB after that??? That's robbery. (Keep in mind that T-Mobile and Sprint users get UNLIMITED data for FREE, without buying any international add-on!)

I agree: I would get SIM card in Ireland for at least one of the phones. That would give that phone an Irish phone number, though, until the Verizon SIM is put back in. (But you can still use Google Hangouts to make calls to US phones.) Any Verizon 4GLTE Android phone should already be unlocked per agreement with the FCC.

Look into using Google Hangouts + Hangouts Dialer on the Android phone to make all calls home to the US WHILE ON WIFI, where it is completely free. But don't use Hangouts without WiFi - that will just eat up your precious 100MB of mobile data that isn't going to last long.

Andrew, it may not be the cheapest option but it's the most convenient for us at this time. We wanted to be able to tag up with our friends while we're on this trip. Also, my nephew is house and dog sitting for us while we are gone so we needed a way for him to contact us if anything needs out attention while we're away.

I appreciate you sharing your expertise, Andrew!

I know what you mean about the convenience, Betty. Verizon (like AT&T) is exploiting the fact that dealing with international SIM cards and international calling is technically daunting for many people - and that bugs me.

Ask your nephew to text you whenever possible, because incoming texts are free for you. Tell him to ask you to call him for non-urgent matters, and you can do that using Google Hangouts when on WiFi at a hotel or restaurant or whatever. Save your calling minutes to call each other.

Again, you help is much appreciated, Andrew!!

If you have at least one Apple phone, you can combine FaceTime (free) with an Irish sim card chip on the other for the most savings. They're available everywhere so long as your phone's unlocked. Forget American company "international plans"--very pricy! In this way, you mightn't need international rates involvement often or at all.

We text.

Whatsapp can be downloaded to your phone and gives you unlimited international texting.

Betty probably doesn't need Whatsapp, because she gets 100 text messages per month included in her Verizon international roaming package (and unlimited received texts). That is, unless she texts a lot. I'd use up the 100 first, then consider something like Whatsapp, because those apps use data for texting, and Betty's plan gives her only a precious tiny 100MB of data per month (then $25 for the next 100MB - expensive!). Text messages themselves don't consume much data, but who knows what else an app like Whatsapp does - syncing past messages, updates, etc.

"If it's a smart phone, install Google Hangouts (and also Google Hangouts Dialer with Android) to make free calls to US phone numbers - well, free on WiFi, use-of-mobile-data if not on WiFi. Works even to landlines."

Using Hangouts or something similar is the best idea especially when the two phones/couples can coordinate beforehand on the proper shared app. For example, if you both have some sort of data (any data, or wifi) you can make Hangouts to Hangouts messaging with very little data used. You can also talk over Hangouts pretty well if both ends have at least at 3G signal, and it takes something like a MB per minute. You can also video chat (but that burns data -use wifi).

There may also be benefits if both phones decide on a certain common carrier. For example, when my wife travels to Ukraine, she takes an Android phone and hooks up with Lifecell (astelit) in Odessa. When using Lifecell, their favorite chat app is called "Bip" which works a lot like Hangouts. The bonus is that by using it, all texts, calls and data are free. So, when she was over there visiting her Mom, and I was over here on wifi, we could call, text and sometimes video chat (when her signal was decent ) and it cost like nothing.