Cell phones + phone cards?

"Darby Jo" wrote
| In London and Paris, can you use locally purchased phone cards to
| make international calls from a cell phone equipped with a
| British or French SIM? Would the call be charged as a local
| mobile call to the local access number and then the international
| part debited from the prepaid phone card?

For UK:

It depends on the access arrangement with the phone card.

1. If it's a phone card using alternative carrier access (1xxx or 1xxxx
prefix) then most if not all mobiles will block access to these prefixes.

2. If it's a phone card using 0800 freephone access, then
(a) 0800 freephone is charged-for on many mobile tariffs
(b) the phone card may block your call, as it costs them more
to receive a call from a mobile
(c) the phone card may surcharge you, like they do from payphones

Same applies for 0845 local rate access.

3. If it's a geographic access number (01 or 02 number) your call should go
through with no problem. You will only pay for the call to the UK geographic
number on the SIM card - which may come within your 'inclusive minutes'

In all cases, the phone company cannot charge you more than the appliccable
rate for the initial number you dial.

Owain

Owain wrote:

2. If it's a phone card using 0800 freephone access, then
(a) 0800 freephone is charged-for on many mobile tariffs

Only orange gives its customers free 0800 calls, but only if you have an
contract (and are not on any of the OVP plans)- which someone coming
into the country on a temporary basis would be unlikely to qualify for,
or indeed want. Orange charges for calls to "known" calling card
numbers, but it's a bit of a game. All the access numbers I use work- as
a result, I pay 2p-4p a minute to calls to landlines in the UK and most
foreign countries I call, instead of what Orange would _like_ to charge
me!

(b) the phone card may block your call, as it costs them more
to receive a call from a mobile

(c) the phone card may surcharge you, like they do from payphones

Same applies for 0845 local rate access.

3. If it's a geographic access number (01 or 02 number) your call should go
through with no problem. You will only pay for the call to the UK geographic
number on the SIM card - which may come within your 'inclusive minutes'

Again, if not on contract, then you won't get inclusive minutes. I
haven't had a PAYG phone for a while, but I remember in 1999, that the
mobile PAYG I had (t-mobile, then 121) blocked access to the geographic
numbers on 2 calling cards I tried to use. I don't think that's
widespread though- and there are probably too many such cards on the
market for the mobile companies to bother.

David

--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.co.uk
davidhorne (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk