[chump2555]

I am heading to the Netherlands for 4 months this next Tuesday. I currently have a BB pearl and an older unlocked BB brick (with the trackwheel). I will use my older BB pearl to have a local phone number in the Netherlands.

My debate is: Do I spend the money on the Curve for the sole purpose of having Wifi and using hotspot at home to make unlimited calls from the Netherlands to the United States and avoid the international roaming/calling rates? Is the price (450 since I can't receive discounts) justifiable in your opinion?

Should I consider using Skype to communicate with my family? The cost would be a heck of a lot cheaper and would provide a local US number for my family to contact me at via THEIR cell phones and land lines, but I am then confined to my laptop.

If I did NOT purchase the Curve and stuck with my BB Pearl and my United States number, I would be confined to the $.99+ a minute to call home and to call other countries in Europe. There would be no option to save money using Wifi calling when possible.

600 minutes a month @ $.99/minute=$594*4 months=$2,376

1500 minutes a month @ $.99/minute=$1,485*4 months=$5,940

Skype=No idea on specific costs for me and my family/friends since they have no customer representatives to call (pisses me off when I can't talk to a live person)

Local Netherlands SIM card and phone number=no idea on price because all of the websites are in Dutch.


This is an overview of the information that I know and how I understand it. Can anybody give me some words of wisdom from your experiences abroad or your experiences with tmobile vs. skype?

-Chris

[kickinitlive247]

I will be travelling to vietnam for a month in april and have similar questions, but I already have a curve. So I think I can just use the wifi to call my friends and family. Has anyone done this? Do I need to unlock my phone? Maybe I will use a prepaid sim card when I get there for when I'm travelling around.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[deni]

I don't know if you're willing to consider phone cards, but that would be your cheapest option. I am an international student and call home during the semester, and when I go home, I call the US. I use a combination of Skype and calling cards. If you and the party you're calling are both at a computer, then Skype is free. I don't have any experience with their local US number service.

When I'm home, I use phonecards both ways and it's really cheap. There are tons of cheap phonecards (I usually get them from www.justphonecards.com; you can call the Netherlands from the US for 3.6 cents a minute). When you get to the Netherlands, you can buy cards to call the US from there. Yes, there is the extra hassle of having to dial a phone card number, a PIN, and then your number, but it all depends on how much money you want to save. Besides, some cards have PIN-less dialing which makes things a bit easier.