My daughters partner has joined the Asian Golf Tour and his first T Mobile bill back from the Phillipines was just over £400. He wasn't on the phone that long. Can anyone advise on an alternative that would work in various countries ie Malaysia Thailand China Phillipines etc, to enable him to call the UK. He carries a lap top.

Using callback, activated from his laptop, could be a solution.
However, to start with he would be better buying pay as you go chips for the appropriate country.


M = Mobile    L = Landline  All in £.p inc vat   per minute  PLUS ABOUT 3p connection fee.
The connected part to the UK is free.
Eg 10 mins on a mobile in China to UK, using a PAYG Chinese chip would cost 11p plus the web connection charge to activate the call.

Voipstunt
Malaysia  L=FREE  M=0.032
China      L=0.004 M=0.008
Thailand   L=0.008 M=0.008
Phillipines  L=0.135   M=0.151

Just one example.

Quote:

My daughters partner has joined the Asian Golf Tour and his first T Mobile bill back from the Phillipines was just over £400.

Does he have rocks in his head? Is there ANYONE in the world who doesn't now realise that mobile companies are the modern equivalent of pirates dressed in suits?

They charge you an arm and a leg for a call within country. You KNOW they will devour your whole soul for a roaming call overseas.......

Use ONLY in the most dire emergency...or face the consequences - like four hundred quid!   >:(

I think he was concerntrating on travelling to the other side of the world for the first time and competing in an alien enviroment. I guess he was a little vulnerable with all the things he had to deal with, he is now trying to sort things out on future trips. I agree its greedy profitering, can you add a suggestion as to how he should avoid these criminal costs.

Two options here,    Buy sim cards or each country,  or buy a global sim card.

In Thailand you can buy a sim card for the True Network from any seven eleven store for only 150bht,  the minimum top up is 100bht and calls to the UK are about 5p per minute when using a cheap access number.  You can also phone this number for only 1p a minute from any BT phone in the UK by dialing a cheap access number,  an example is http://www.telesavers.co.uk/       ...   You will need a passport or ID when buying a sim card in Thailand, due to the amount of bombs going off in the south triggered by mobile phones, the government has made it compulsory to buy with ID and register the card (takes about 2 minutes to register, and the card will be working within the minutes.  True gave me the best coverage when I was in Thailand last year, but things might have changed since then.

In China,  China Mobile is said to be best for coverage all over China. The sim cards can be bought from almost any local store or one of the numerous accessory shops you find all over china.  just ask for "Sim Ka", again calling china is only 1p per minute from any UK landline (Cheaper to phone a chinese mobile than a UK one!!!)

Philippines, Same again, sim card for about £2-£3,, calls a bit more expensive about 6p per minute.  
....

The other option and the easiest one is to Buy a global sim card for the phone,  look at http://www.0044.co.uk/global-sim-card.htm  for an example.  Calls are about 20p per minute to the UK from anywhere in Asia.

hi, I used phone cards or telediscount is 9p to phone a mobile and 8p to phone a landline with connection charge which is not really that much, and for txt messaging to Asia, especially in the Philippines, he can use a free txt msg service using the net, it is called Chikka.com. send txt as many as u like and for them to reply will only cost them 2 pesos.

Hope that will help! :)