• WHAT: Easy ways to call international numbers for next-to-nothing from your cell phone
• WHY: Because the cost to call these numbers normally is prohibitively
• COST: It'll save you big $$

With all the traveling that I've done there are a group of people around the world that I still stay in touch with on an occasional basis.  When I'm at my computer I use Skype for voice or video chatting to stay connected with them - it's easy (especially with my Mac, which has a video camera built in for exactly this purpose) and couldn't be any cheaper (it's free).  It's a different story when you want to do it by phone, though, as Skype is a little - but not much - more complicated to use.  There are plenty of tutorials about using Skype and other services to do this so I won't go into it here... suffice it to say that the way I like to do it is to set up a "SkypeIn" number for my friends in other countries.  It gives them a local number in their country to call and connects to my computer - and can be forwarded to my phone, mobile, etc., - and works transparently for them from any phone.

It's not quite as easy in the other direction, though.  If you want to use a "SkypeOut" function you have to initiate the calls from your computer or from a special Skype-friendly handset that works over a WiFi connection.  Most times I don't want to do that - I'd much rather make the calls when it's convenient, like when I'm stuck in traffic and want to put the time to good use.  So how do you do that from a mobile phone without it costing a fortune?  It's not hard - there are several methods, really, but one of them stands out as being the best for convenience and ease of use.  

First, the other contenders.  It's easy to find an international calling card or prepaid cards - they're all over the Internet and a quick Google search for "cheap international phone calls" brings up enough of them to make your head spin.  The problem is that all of these have one fatal flaw... you have to call an access number and then, after you're connected to their system, call the number you want to reach.  Then you have to enter your credit card number and your PIN.  It's a nuisance and it's certainly not conducive to doing it from the car.  The one that I like, however, works without any muss, fuss or messy cleanup. You just call the access number and the system recognizes your phone - you get a dial tone (remember dial tone?) just call the number you want to reach. 

Get on over to Gorilla Mobile and sign up.   The whole process takes about two minutes and then, once you're registered you will be able to make international calls simply and quickly.  The rates that they offer are about the same, or less, than the other services that I've seen or tried.  The rates are much less to call a landline phone than they are to call a mobile in the same country (e.g., Australia is US$0.06/minute vs. US$0.19/minute) but still reasonable compared to calling from almost any other phone.  They do charge a fee for each connected call of US$0.15, roughly equivalent to a couple of minutes of time, but other than that there are no fees.  One really nice feature of the service is that you can register up to 10 landline and 10 mobile numbers on one account, making it perfect for a family or small business (as long as you don't mind having everyone's calls show up on the same account - I haven't seen their billing yet so I don't know if it's separated by the originating number). 

Between Skype when you're at your desk, prepaid cards when you're traveling or using someone else's phone and Gorilla Mobile when you want to make calls from your own phones it's easy to stay in touch with those pals overseas.  Don't forget to look into SkypeIn to make it easy for people to contact you from various places overseas - but for mobility and convenience, you'll love Gorilla Mobile.