Call China

[albag]

My girlfriend's moving to China for a year to study at the end of the summer. Hopefully I can visit her a couple of times, but I'm also thinking about the best way to keep in touch by calling her in China from the US.

I think she'll be in university dorms, so I don't know if she'll have her own landline - more likely a mobile, and maybe access to a public phone? I guess the most likely option is using Skype or a calling card to phone her mobile - but what is quality like, and which is usually cheaper? Any experiences? Or does it make more sense for her to call me? She prefers using a proper phone to using a laptop, so using Skype computer to computer isn't ideal.

[kdavid]

If money isn't an issue, the use whatever is most convenient for you two. If you'd like to keep costs low, though, Skype is your best bet. I use it to speak to family and friends back home all the time and have no problems using it. You just need to make sure that you're both at your computers.

[Moving_away]

I am using skype daily to call my girlfriend. From skype you can buy subscribtions which allow you to make unlimited call to specific countries. In the World-subscription China is included, and unlike many other countries, calling to China is free for both landlines and mobile. The computer to computer quality is better (plus you have the advantage to add a webcam), but definitely this service works great. So you need skype and a subscription, she just needs a mobile phone.

Skype Subscriptions

[Lu]

You can also use skype to call to a real phone (landline or mobile) very cheaply. Or try googling something like 'call China cheap'. In Holland there are numbers you can call, and if you call abroad through there it's very cheap, something similar might exist in your country.

[woliveri]

Find a Chinese area where you live and buy a Phone Card there... I buy them for 15.00 which has like 1600 minutes or something like that. Then use your cell phone on off peak times and you'll be good.

Darn cheap to call China.

[jbradfor]

If you haven't done so yet, consider buying a pair of cheap USB cameras for your laptops, and use skype (or others) to do free video conferencing. [i think moving_away mentioned this too, but I want to make it more prominent.] The quality can be rather good, it seems to depend much more on the quality of your last-mile connection than on the distance. I've done it before between USA and Asia, and was rather impressed. Plus, even if the video conferencing doesn't work out, she'll be touched by your thoughtfulness!

[zozzen]

I'm using skype and bundle it with local numbers. When people at home countries call my original mobile phone number, it will forward to my china's mobile number.

1. Buy her the skype's One Country plan ($5.95/month)

2. Subscribe local numbers (don't remember the charges)

3. After the setting, you just dial an US number, the call will be forwarded to her mobile phone in China. The best is that she can receive her calls without any charge.

The drawback is that she can't call you back with her mobile phone (skype doesn't offer china's local number yet).

Another cheap way is to use wifi-enabled Pocket PC. Wherever she is in a cafe, she can make a call to you with PPC Skype via the wifi network.