Calling UK from Australia on a mobile

[Thetenor]

My daughter has recently gone to Brisbane and we need to know the cheapest and most cost effective way she can call us from Australia to the UK using her mobile. She bought a pre paid card recently and she thought she had about 2000 call minutes but when she used it to call us back in the UK the card was used up in just two calls??????

Also any advice on Internet access in Australia??? She has to buy a dongle pre paid to use in her laptop. Can she not purchase a monthly service where she can have unlimited access. She wants to Skype us back in the UK but without paying each time she uses the internet.

[admin]

Hello,

Two companies that come to mind providing wireless service in Australia are Telstra and Vodafone:
https://www.vodafone.com.au
https://www.telstra.com.au/

Like most such providers they have contract and prepaid plans. Contract plans are usually more cost effective, but they obviously require signing a term contract, likely for 2 years. Both companies have prepaid plans for mobile broadband starting at around $30 for several gb of traffic. Of course, if your daughter can find a free WiFi hotspot she wouldn’t need to buy the prepaid card.

Regarding telephone calls from her mobile phone: she can either use her UK phone to place/receive calls in roaming (this isn’t usually an inexpensive method), or she can buy a local SIM card with an Australia mobile number. It would be cheaper if you called her using some prepaid service such as https://www.localphone.com or https://www.rebtel.com because you probably have access to free local calling while she doesn’t. The services mentioned above charge low rates to any country, but in order to connect you must dial a local number.

One other thing you should know is that calls to mobile phones cost more and most calling service providers advertise the low rates for calling to landlines. If your daughter called you on your cell the above might explain why she didn’t get all the promised minutes.

[Thetenor]

Great reply and thanks. My daughter called our landline number using her mobile prepaid card. She was told she had purchased around 2000 mins but as stated after two calls of about 20 mins duration each her balance had been used up? Is that because it is an international call??

[admin]

It depends on what type of minutes these were. I assumed she was told they were international minutes. If the 2000 minutes were for local use you can’t expect to have the same number of minutes when dialing to the UK.

[Author]

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