Phoning to or from the States - no real time to organise anything

JimmyTheWig

I've left this a bit late.

I'm going to the States on Monday for a week with work, leaving my wife and kids here. It's not something we do, so it's going to be quite tough on all of us, especially at the start of the school year, etc.
So we are going to need some way of keeping in touch.

Basically I want to know what the cheapest way of doing it is.
I'll have my personal O2 PAYG mobile and my work contract Orange phone (but I don't really use this for outbound personal calls as it gets a bit complicated).
My wife has a 3 contract mobile (doesn't include overseas minutes as we never call abroad) and we have a BT landline at home.

Don't know what the deal is with phones in the hotel. Presumably phoning home from my room would cost a fortune. Might it be possible for my wife to phone me direct at the hotel? In which case we just need the cheapest deal for phoning the States from a BT line.
But if I can't receive incoming calls at the hotel, has anyone got any ideas?

Obviously there's the 7 hour time difference to consider. I guess most of the calls will be after work US time / late morning UK time.


Any suggestions gratefully received.

Jim

utilitybroker

Subscribe to www.18185.co.uk and if you can recieve incoming calls in your hotel your wife can call you from your BT Line at half a pence a minute. 4p connection.

If you dont want to do that there a number of cheap call suppliers she can use from a BT Line. See: http://callchecker.moneysavingexpert.com/intcallchecker/usa

redux

If you need mobile use too, don't use any of the UK ones, unless only for text messages, as even incoming roaming fees are quite steep. Get a US SIM card and use in an unlocked phone, but these are charged also for incoming calls, so between landlines will be cheaper.

For you to call from the hotel, there are myriads of phone cards that would cost from about 2 cents a minute via toll-free access numbers

JimmyTheWig

Thanks guys, that's great help.

utilitybroker wrote: »

Subscribe to www.18185.co.uk and if you can recieve incoming calls in your hotel your wife can call you from your BT Line at half a pence a minute. 4p connection.

If you dont want to do that there a number of cheap call suppliers she can use from a BT Line. See: http://callchecker.moneysavingexpert.com/intcallchecker/usa

That price is incredibly cheap! I'm well chuffed.

What's more, I then ticked the mobile checkbox on the call checker and that came up with the same 0.5p /min rate!

If I can't receive calls at the hotel, would I be able to receive them at a public phone box?

redux wrote: »

If you need mobile use too, don't use any of the UK ones, unless only for text messages, as even incoming roaming fees are quite steep. Get a US SIM card and use in an unlocked phone, but these are charged also for incoming calls, so between landlines will be cheaper.

I won't really need to make calls when I'm there, other than phoning home.
I presume that you're saying if my wife uses 18185 to phone my personal mobile it will cost me a fortune. That's what I would have expected.
But if I get a US SIM it will still cost me, but not so much. Any idea how much?
Presumably I would buy one of these SIMs over there. Any idea of cost or where to get them?

For you to call from the hotel, there are myriads of phone cards that would cost from about 2 cents a minute via toll-free access numbers

Again, where might I get these from? Any suggestions what to look for / avoid?

redux

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

If I can't receive calls at the hotel, would I be able to receive them at a public phone box?


I won't really need to make calls when I'm there, other than phoning home.
I presume that you're saying if my wife uses 18185 to phone my personal mobile it will cost me a fortune. That's what I would have expected.
But if I get a US SIM it will still cost me, but not so much. Any idea how much?
Presumably I would buy one of these SIMs over there. Any idea of cost or where to get them?


Again, where might I get these from? Any suggestions what to look for / avoid?

I'm not sure about the phonebox, but I think it's pretty likely you can receive calls in your hotel room, either via the switchboard or even a direct number per room; ask a receptionist for details.

There are 2 main GSM networks and some virtual operators on them. USA uses different frequency bands, so so tri- or quadband from here would be needed. Details, with tariffs, at http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

You'll find cheap phones and SIMs in plenty of shops, with phones starting from about $20, useful if your UK phone is locked or only dualband here. There are also some CDMA networks, a different digital standard. You'd find more discussion of all this by searching USA in the mobiles board here

If you decide not to bother with that, and to use just your UK mobile for sms, turn off the voicemail before you leave UK, as some charge double roaming costs (incoming and outgoing) for diverting calls back to vm

For calling cards, a Google search will find hundreds, and it's difficult to make a choice as some have complicated extra fees like daily maintenance or connection charges

I haven't used one there myself, but I'd probably choose between these

http://www.comfi.com/calling-cards/UK

http://www.nobelcom.com/nobelcom/jsp/productselection/productselection.jsp?from_country=1&to_country=289&x=83&y=16

If you occasionally make trips to other countries, you might choose one with access from those too, and which can be topped up later

You can set up an account online, and an email reply will give you a PIN number. To use, you call the access number, enter the PIN when requested, then dial the destination. You can start with only $10, which is probably enough, and many can be used from or mobiles; choose one with tollfree access for from the hotel landline.

But if you can receive calls in the hotel, and can put up with the timezone difference, maybe you won't need all the rest.

BexTech

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

What's more, I then ticked the mobile checkbox on the call checker and that came up with the same 0.5p /min rate!

That's because the North American phone system differs from almost the rest of the world.

In the USA it costs the same to call a mobile as it does a landline. You can port landline and mobile numbers between each other as they use the same area codes etc. Therefore you don't know whether you are calling a landline or a mobile.

However the difference is the mobile phone user has to pay to receive calls usually around 15cents per minute or out of inclusive minutes packages. They have to pay the higher costs involve rather than the caller like in most the rest of the world.

As for calling hotels, I've not yet found a hotel that didn't accept calls and patched them through to the room. If you know what hotels you are stopping in and on what days you can give out the numbers in advance, then just use your mobile and ring home for a couple of rings, then those at home can ring you back at the hotel.