Using FaceTime with wi fi calling the US

Hi Ruth, I’m the most techno challenged person you’ll ever meet, but I’ve FaceTimed family twice from Europe while in my hotel room. I have no data plan on my iPad, and my husband doesn’t have any on his. We were able to have a good face to face a few times.
Edited to add that I did not have to add a country code. I just clicked on his contact info.

All both devices need is Internet, so you being on wifi is all you need. Your son does not need to be in airplane mode given he is at home in the US. If he's not on wifi when you call he will be using his own carrier data, so presumably that's fine as he's not roaming.

Facetime and Whatsapp are internet apps, so they don't care what country each person is in,
as long as the person you're trying to reach is in your contact list.

Skype can incur a charge to originator if you are calling a real phone number. If the person
you are trying to reach is also a Skype user then the call is free, same as above.

Since you are contacting another Facetime/Whatsapp user, you won't be putting in any phone
numbers at all. So I believe EC is mistaken when they say you need to add +1. That could apply
if you are calling a phone number, not a contact.

FaceTime uses the internet, it doesn’t use telephone lines. So if you FaceTime someone from abroad, you don’t need to put +1 in front, just like you don’t need to put +1 in front of an email address if you send someone an email from abroad.

In other words, make your call just exactly like you would at home. No changes needed for either of you.

Thank you, everyone— this answers my questions!

@ Ruth

I am glad you have had your questions answered. Maybe my experience will be useful.

I am not an apple user, my wife is.

My wife uses Facetime, and by extension, I do. The royal We.

We travel in Australia and our region frequently and have been using it for about 5 years, mainly to keep in contact with our grandchildren.

On our current around the world in less than 80 days we have used Facetime in Paris, Eurostar, London, Cotswold, Rome, rural Parma, rural Udine, Lake Bled Slovakia, Venice, San Valentino and currently rural Martina Franca, Puglia. This journey started with a 3-hour morning layover in Shanghai, China, through to Paris. In Shanghai I had a lounge attendant connect my laptop to the internet and asked him if We could use Facetime. We were in the same time zone. No problem, except the grandchildren were all doing other things and were not expecting us to call. Timing issue.

Our biggest challenge is one of timing. We are now 8 hours in arears. When it is 7am today for the grandchildren, it is 11pm yesterday for us. If possible, We Facetimes 2 times a day with two locations for about 10 minutes each.

The technology works well most of the time. Do not let it scare you.

Works like this. In Europe, your hotel will have an optical cable connection from the local telephone exchange with a router on the hotel premises that transmits via WiFi through the premises for you, and others to connect to.

I assume that in USA your son has a WiFi router at home that is connected to his local telephone exchange by either an in-ground cable or cellular service. Both countries are connected by transatlantic submarine cable or satellite facilities.

Pretty simple really. Have no idea how national and international telecommunication companies can connect individuals up without a telephone number. Maybe a telecommunications engineer can explain it. Or Apple has developed a secret communications protocol I am unaware of.

Can even use my Sat Phone as a hotspot to use Facetime at a remote mine site in the outback. But is rather expensive.

The only limiting factor I can think of is the amount of data your son has purchased from his telecommunications provider. You need talk to him about this.

Just try it, use it, and make it work for you. The more one uses Facetime or any other software, the more one understands it and the more confident and proficient one becomes.

Surely, he deserves to hear from you every day, not just his birthday.

Regards Ron