oh, to call a spanish cellphone...
October 27, 2006 6:49 PM   Subscribe

what's the cheapest way to call from the US to a spanish cellphone?

not much more to say... there are a million phone card options online and here in new york, but they have so many hidden fees i can't compare between all of them. hopefully someone else has!
posted by yonation to Technology (8 answers total)
 
Skype
posted by Maia at 6:50 PM on October 27, 2006


Check out Rebtel. You set up a local number for each other and can make unlimited calls for $1 per wk. you use the service - so if you don't use it, you don't pay anything. I've used it to call Norway before and it's very handy.
posted by flod logic at 8:34 PM on October 27, 2006


Spanish as in.. being in Spain?

you might want to see about Vonage or Lingo. They have quite a few European countries included in the free calling area. Vonage says:
"Unlimited plans also include free calls to:

Italy
France
Spain
UK
Ireland"

I don't see why they would exclude cell phones.
posted by drstein at 11:17 PM on October 27, 2006


In most of the world outside of the USA, the cellphone owner doesn't pay for incoming calls, the caller does. This usually means cellphones have their own area codes and their own per-minute rates when you call them.

That's why you'll see most long distance operators announce fees like 5c a minute / 20c for cellphones.

You will NOT find a plan with the same rate for both, unless they charge you the most expensive one for regular calls (i.e. "20c per minute anywhere!")
posted by sd at 6:08 AM on October 28, 2006


I'll second VoIP as a cheap way of doing this. Skype is the most popular service (and someone else has already mentioned Vonage), but you can probably find a VoIP provider that offers even cheaper calls, possibly even a flatrate untimed (maybe, it all depends on how mobiles work in Spain).

Basically, you make the call from the US and it is routed over the Internet to a computer in spain that then makes a local connection to the spanish cell phone, hence the cheap call rate.

Downside: Unless you want to buy a device to connect a phone directly to your router (called an ATA), you'd probably have to make the call from your computer using a headset.
posted by ranglin at 6:19 AM on October 28, 2006


Skype.com: €0.22/min
Voipcheap.com: €0.116/min
It's been a while Skype is not competitive anymore!
posted by rom1 at 6:41 AM on October 28, 2006


How about free? I have not used this but I hear it works very well. Link
posted by Sagres at 6:21 PM on October 28, 2006


Sorry, I just read Futurephone will not work for calling cellphones in Spain.
posted by Sagres at 6:30 PM on October 28, 2006


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