International cell phone calling plans for when they are deployed?

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Permalink Reply by Kerry Anderson on December 14, 2011 at 5:03pm

William,  My son is an EM on the fast attack USS Albuquerque out of San Diego ... he completed prototype about 4 months ago.   He was deployed about 2 months ago and met his boat in Guam.  He was able to use skype from the sub tender in Guam (using WiFi) and also from the local mall ... I know it's a US territory but even the Verizon phone costs weren't that much, but I'd say that Internet chat and/or skype is by far your cheapest bet.  In Guam he was calling one of his free numbers at Verizon but they still charged a roaming fee ... it came out to about $40 for 3 hours of total talk time (to his wife) over a couple days.  Although they have limited space on the sub, he took a regular cellphone and an iPod Touch (to have all his music and the WiFi capabilities without the data plan costs), ... we see him active in the google chat app and can message ... then we can add a skype session or google chat video session.  The internet methods worked out great for us.  

May God bless your son for his service and you for your support of him.

Permalink Reply by Theresa on February 20, 2012 at 1:32pm

My son is in Guam and I use a calling card to speak with him. He had a phone installed in his room that gives him unlimited calling to the US. However, on our end it's way cheaper to use a calling card. Mine charges .017 cents a minute. If they have access to wifi that's usually the best way to go like facebook, twitter, skype, ichat or ivisit. We usually use facebook to leave him messages but when he likes to hear our voices he will text to us to call him. That's another thing we use is texting. We pay $50 extra a month for 500 text messages. I wish they would have an unlimited international text plan but oh well. He will be deployed next month so everything will have to be through wifi.

Permalink Reply by William in Nashua on February 22, 2012 at 10:34am

Thanks.  I found out there is a 900 minute Verizon international calling card you can buy at Costco for $30 that lets you call to other countries from the US, and it also lets you call back to the US from overseas (which costs more like 20c to 30c a minute).