cell phones

Her best option would be to purchase an inexpensive Pay As You Go Phone at someplace like Carphone Warehouse. They come with some minutes included in the price, and then she could just add minutes as needed during her time there. Since she won't be using it to call home it would come out much cheaper than renting a phone.

Good advice by Nancy. England has great deals on PAYG phones. Carphone Warehouse and phones4u each currently have phone + sim + £10 talk time for £15.

I'm not sure how your daughter uses her phone but my recently graduated daughter burned through hundreds of minutes every month. I was appalled at how much time she went around with the phone to her ear. That didn't include texts which were unlimited. Your daughter will have to be on board with the limitations of any plan you get. I also suggest you don't make it "invisible" to you until the big bill comes in. A pay as you go would be great if you don't get a big surprise later.

Thanks. Is Carphone Warehouse a British store? How much does one cost?

Yes it is. Have a look at http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/ You could also try Tescos. None of the cheap phones at either place are likely to have Interweb so Skype will be difficult.

There ae different phones at varying prices. As I stated, one is available currently at £15 which includes £10 talk time.

We just returned from England three days ago. There was no charge for AT&T to unlock my cell phone before we left. I bought a Lebara SIM card in London for 5 GBP and 10 GBP of talk time. It costs about $.03 per minute to call the US, but more to make calls within the UK. I bought the SIM card at a news stand, but they're sold all over. I topped up once for 5 GBP, but had most of it left when we returned to the states.

Verizon phones cannot be used in Europe so I agree with the others that her best bet would be to buy a phone when she gets there.

You shouldn't be surprised by a big bill with a prepaid or pay-as-you-go phone. You can only text or talk so long as there is enough money loaded on the account.

I used both Virgin and Lebara. Lebara is much less expensive, however, there's a big point of which you should be aware. Lebara doesn't permit calls to U.S. interactive phone systems. The keypad tones are disabled to prevent your calling into other phone systems. This means that you can't use the Lebara SIM to check your U.S. voicemails, or to check balances on bank accounts, or, presumably to navigate through any phone system that requires that you "press 1 for" a department, or to enter an account number or a password. Virgin was much more expensive than what the guy in the store claimed (15p per minute) or the tariff card in the sealed package (20p per minute) said. I called Virgin and they told me it should say 25p per minute, but my calls were being charged at as much as 1 per minute. (Yes, I'm taking into account that they charge different rates for calls to land lines and to mobiles, as well as for international calls).

If your daughter is at a school in London surely she will have internet wifi or wired that she can use? And she'll have access to a laptop? That's Skype sorted if she can find headphones and a mike. As far as limiting her phoning, texting, etc., there are plenty of decent deals for second level up PAYG, say at Tescos. Just stick with Skype for long distance, preferably Pc to Pc and therefor free. I'm sure that in 3 months she will have lots of friends here to keep her thumb plenty busy.