Calling
international telephone numbers from the US to land lines in the
Philippines can be confusing enough all by itself. If
you add cell phones to the mix, it gets even more confusing. Prompted by an email question from a reader, I'm going to
explain how to call both land lines and cell phones from the US to the
Philippines. It's simple, but I forget how to do it and I live
here. My
first response to the email was wrong.Calling Land Lines in the PhilippinesI don't know when people started calling regular telephones
land lines. It was probably when cell phones became globally
ubiquitous. It
doesn't matter now, I suppose.To call
from a US telephone to a Philippines land line, you have to dial a long
string of numbers, starting with the international access number. The
string looks like this: 011-63-city code-phone number.The
city codes can be found in major telephone directories. I won't repeat
all of them here, but the city code for Manila is 2 and the city code
for Olongapo, where I live, is 47. To call my home phone,
you would dial 011-63-47-phone number.Calling Cell Phones in the PhilippinesThe place in the calling sequence for the city
code, when it comes to cell phones, is replaced by a 3-digit number
which has nothing to do with any city. All cell phone numbers
in the Philippines start with 0. My cell phone number prefix is 0907. When you dial internationally, you have to leave the 0
completely out.If you wanted to call
my cell phone, you would dial: 011-63-907-phone numberExpensive CallsDialing
via the international access number of 011 is the most expensive way to
call the Philippines, even if you use a phone card. The best rate you can
possibly get is more than 5 cents per minute, even if you get a
preferred country plan.If you have relatives you call in the Philippines
frequently, like my wife does with me, it makes sense to invest in a way
to make your phone calls as cheap as they can possibly be. You
should set up a cheap PC at the destination, sign up for the country
plan through Skype and designate the US as the country. I don't want
to sound like the poster child for Skype, but they have one of the most
effective VoIP systems in the world.A PC can run as little as $
600 in the Philippines. The Skype monthly service charge is about $ 6.00 right now, and
it includes the ability to have a local US number (usually in the same
city where you live) at no extra charge. Your
relatives can then call you or you can call that "local number" and
speak to them for up to 10,000 minutes per month. It would then be a
local call on your phone, making it cost nothing but your time (if
you're using a cell phone to call).Trust me. Your investment
will pay for itself quickly even if the initial outlay seems expensive. With phone cards, you could easily spend more than $ 1000 per
year. If you consider that you can
also use instant messaging for texting, PC to PC and from cell phone to
PC (at an extra monthly charge from you cell phone service provider),
the benefits of using Skype far outweigh the investment. You can't top this deal even if you have one
of the best cell phone plans in the world.
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