My son has a Droid Incredible 2 (Verizon) cell phone that is touted as  a so called "world  phone" it is both CDMA and GSM and supposedly all the cell phone frequency bands used world wide and so it works in 220 countries for voice.

I was wondering what other nukes do for international calling plans, and by that I mean calling from foreign liberty ports back here to the U.S.?  Or are there any other US  wireless carriers that give a better deal than Verizon?  Verizon are kind of expensive for example $1.99 a minute for Japan whether they call you, or you call them.

Or is it cheaper to use Skype or Google Voice from their cell phone and they somehow have to go and find an internet cafe at the liberty port so they do not have to pay wireless charges (for phones that have WiFi).  Thanks.

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  • 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).

  • 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.

  • 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.

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