Hi,
A friend is in Paris for 4 months attending college. What would be the cheapest method for calling the US? Calling card? Which one? Cell phone? Buy the phone/chip in Europe?
Thanks for the help,

==Mike

Hi M,

Is your friend planning on calling his US friends every day?

A phone card is probably cheaper by the minute, and also cheaper because it is not as convenient as a cell phone and therefore would be used less often.

Check out http://www.10-10phonerates.com/intl.html

I've used 101 6868 011 followed by ctry/area/local number. I've used this sevral time. Excellent rates, works like a charm.

1016868 is for calling Europe from the U.S., isn't it?

I use "phone cards" from Nobelcom.com to call the U.S. from France. There's really not card involved -- just an access number and a PIN.

sorry, i must be dyslexic today...read your post backwards

Hi,

Thanks for the replys.

Ira: she's 20 and wants to speak to her mom at least once a week!

==Mike

The CHEAPEST way is to get a SIM from a European cell phone carrier that doesn't charge for incoming calls.

You dial a server in the US that makes a note of your Caller ID number and calls you back.

When you answer your (free) phone in Europe, you hear a dial tone that gets you long distance all over the US. The only toll is for the LD (I think it's about 2-3 cents per minute).

My daughter has been studying in europe for the past four months. She uses phone cards and also an internet phone service called Skype which is dirt cheap, so a lot of students use it. It requires signing up for the service plus a headset with a microphone, but it is useful. The kids yack to each other incessently on it and she calls me here in the states and talks for an hour at a clip. We sometimes do get cut off, but she just reconects. The headsets can be bought at places like Best Buy. I mailed her the one she uses after she saw other kids using Skype. Some sets even come with offers for so many hours of free Skype service. Tell the your friend to look up Skype.com on the net.

The calling card that I like is a prepaid ATT card from Sam's Club.

Purchase it at 3.4 cents per unit and call the US from Germany for 7 units per minute, or about 24 cents per minute. The number of units varies by which country you are calling from, some more, some less.

You do need the access number for each country you call from. Get them by calling a number on the back of the card.

It may not work from some of the eastern countries, like Czech Republic, but I did get the access numbers for Slovaka and Hungary.

You don't need to have the card itself, only the numbers. So someone can forward it to you, or two people can share, etc.