Phone calls from U.S landlines to Irish mobiles.

[FL/MAYO]

Just wondering do any of our American based posters know of the cheapest way to call Irish mobile phones. Need to be in daily contact with my parents via their mobiles over the next few weeks and it is expensive to call mobiles in the ROI.

[The Blegard]

use Skype. Would never ring international on anything else

[heganboy]

vonage is the other option

[FL/MAYO]

Have Vonage but calling mobiles is still expensive with them.
Whats the cost to call mobiles with Skype?

[magickingdom]

when i'm in the states i always pop into the 711 shop and pick up a $20 or $40 phone card -  great value for the calls back to ireland

[J70]

Phone cards are the easiest. You ring the number on the card, enter the PIN (its a scratch card), enter the Irish phone number and that's it. You'll get about 20 minutes for five dollars when calling an Irish mobile, several hours for a land line. Under no circumstance should you call an Irish mobile number from a US mobile or other phone that doesn't have some international plan - it'll end up costing four or five dollars per minute.

If you have a PC handy when you need it, Skype is obviously a good idea too.

[Puckoon]

I use pannon telecom. My long distance bill is no more than 35$ a month and that includes the wife calling hungary.

[FL/MAYO]

The problem with phone cards is they have a connection fee which eats up the credit.
Vonage is great for landlines as it cost nothing above the monthly fee to call landlines at home, my wife is on the phone for hours to Ireland at no extra cost, its the cost of calling mobiles where you get ripped off, I must check out Skype and see what the cost is with them.
Thanks for the input lads.

[tyssam5]

Well I find the cheapest way to do it is from work 

But if that's not an option one calling card I have found very good, I got through a website called alosmart

As mentioned connection fees etc can make these a rip-off, but I found one called 'anytime' which is good, fee are minimal and it is less than 1cent a minute for landlines.

I looked at for mobile to Ireland, it says 15c/min - about half of what I would pay from my cell-phone and cheaper than Skype. Don't know any cheaper one than that.

Skype is great job for texts though.

[magickingdom]

The problem with phone cards is they have a connection fee which eats up the credit.
Vonage is great for landlines as it cost nothing above the monthly fee to call landlines at home, my wife is on the phone for hours to Ireland at no extra cost, its the cost of calling mobiles where you get ripped off, I must check out Skype and see what the cost is with them.
Thanks for the input lads.

not so sure thats true, as j70 says above you get about 20 minutes for $5 thats not bad. the 711 one i had did not have a connection fee

[J70]

Maybe it differs by state, but the multitude of phone cards you can buy in any newsagent or news kiosk in NYC don't have connection fees.

[theskull1]

I know that 3 have skype enabled handsets. Skype calls being free I believe.

[tyssam5]

about 20c/min on Skype to an Irish mobile.

http://www.skype.com/prices/callrates/