We want to make England only and London-US telephone calls while in London and would appreciate any thoughts on the Penny Talk international service for international calls and Carphone Warehouse mobile phones for local London calls. Thanks, Bob
Washington, DC
Posted by
Bromley, Kent,, UK
1829 posts
Carphone Warehouse has some good/cheap PAYG plans covering both UK and International calls. They will be able to advise on the best plan for your needs.
Posted by
Southern California
443 posts
I second Carphone Warehouse for international calls. Our English friends hadn't heard of the carrier CW set us up with, but the rates to the US were about 6 pence a minute. I'm not sure what our UK rate was since I'm not sure we made any in-country calls. Between the phone and Skype we were able to keep in touch with our son very inexpensively.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
Penny Talk works well from land lines, but it may not be such a good deal from a mobile phone, since you'd be paying the mobile airtime charges as well as the Penny Talk fees. As posted above, you can get UK mobile plans with very inexpensive rates to the US (sometimes even cheaper than domestic calls). When you go to Carphone Warehouse, tell them exactly how you intend to use the phone, so you can get the best deal for your needs. If you want to do some research about UK cell phone plans in advance, try Prepaid GSM's UK page: http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/uk.php or their UK/Ireland Forum: http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/uk-ireland/. Be aware that discussion here can get very technical, so don't be afraid to ask for clarification.
Posted by
Gaston, Oregon, USA
931 posts
The people at Car Phone Warehouse are awesome, and will set you up with anything you need. Just tell them what and where you need to make calls. In our case they stuck SIMS in our unlocked Iphones so we could call local in both London and throughout Ireland. I also had data. The calls were so cheap I did not use the Skype that was on my Iphone, and just made direct calls back home.