Calling Card -- USA to Australia-Mobile

[KnickNut3]

I'm studying in Australia and need a way to get in touch with home. I can call home for only 1.5c/min but I only have a cell phone which is outrageously expensive, so I instead have to get slammed with 20c/min charges to use a toll-free number on a pay phone.

Incoming calls on the cell phone are free, and I don't have access to a land line phone, unfortunately. It seems that the easiest way to do this is to have my US friends and family call me using a calling card, but they all seem to be about 10-20 times more expensive to call a mobile than a land line. I can't seem to find one that is reasonably priced.

Can anyone find one? Any other ideas? Thanks so much...

 

[dude8604]

Cheapest I could find is 10.6 cents/min here. 8.1 cents/min here .

 

[KnickNut3]

Yeah, I found about the same thing. Thanks. Once you add in maintainence fees and other crap ("No connection fee! Just pay the call establishment fee!") it's not looking good. Guess I'll continue a search for a landline phone unless any better ideas come up. Thanks.

 

[EatSpam]

Do you have access to broadband? Have someone in the United States sign up for a VOIP service like Vonage and send you the box. Free calling......

 

[dude8604]

Another suggestion. Do you know about callback services. The two I know of are Enlinea and CallBackWorld. This works well for phones that have free incoming calls, like yours does. Basically when you want to make a call, you dial the callback access number, but the call is never completed (busy signal or something). Then a few seconds later, you get a phone call and when you answer, dial a phone number like with a calling card. This means you pay only the callback service rates. This means you'd probably be able to call your family and friends for cheaper.

Actually, it looks like a callback service would be even more expensive. It worked well for when I had a phone when I was travelling in Europe. Australia is expensive though. Nevermind.

 

[KnickNut3]

Thanks for the ideas. No access to broadband as of yet (currently in a public library) and if I get it I'll probably just use AOL chat or something crappy and free like that.

Will keep looking... cell phone card from US or paying a payphone cash + using calling card from AUS seems to be (relative) best options as of now.