Smart-Phone-Cards Blog

Phone cards date back to the mid 1970s, when they were used in Italy for the first time. Two broad types of phone cards exist: prepaid phone cards and credit phone cards. A prepaid system is the most popular phone card system in use today, which does away with the need of billing after a phone call, as users can make phone calls within the stipulated value that the phone card carries until the balance amount is exhausted. These phone cards are disposable, and the user simply discards such a card after use. Reusable or rechargeable phone cards allow users to add value to their original phone card after successive exhaustion of the balance amount, so you can reuse such a card even after you have made calls worth of the initial prepaid amount.

Today phone cards offer the user a world of discounted rates when it comes to international calls as well as domestic long distance calls. Apart from this, there are a wealth of schemes that the user chooses from, which ensures a further reduction of calling rates. International prepaid phone cards are very useful for frequent travelers, who need not bother about carrier rates of the country they are traveling to, and use a phone card of a selected carrier. Prepaid phone cards are found at stores around the world, so you can just about pick one that suits your requirements best quite easily.

Most phone cards use a multiple step initiation of the call, which includes keying in the access codes, and destination number. There are variations in this, with some international phone cards requiring a sequence of numbers to be keyed in before the user actually gets through the call. Although this is supposedly a confusing process, you have to keep in mind the following when buying and using a phone card:

1. Always buy a phone card that you will find useful; there is no point paying for features that you will not use, or you might not be a frequent user of the same.
2. Obtain your PIN number and access codes either physically from the card, or via email.
3. Dial the Local Access Number or equivalent
4. Listen to the instructions
5. Enter your PIN number
6. Listen carefully for the balance and available call time information
7. Enter the number you wish to call

International phone cards tend to be continent or country specific. So, if you buy a UK calling card, then you can make calls to UK numbers alone, and cannot use it to call telephones in say France. Country specific phone cards allow for heavily discounted rates, and often bypass local telecommunications carriers to use their designated pre specified carrier. This is advantageous for people who want to avail of cheap rates and not the usual rates offered by the operators in that country, when calling from the same to another country. Students, travelers as well as local residents alike can take advantage of such a convenient phone card system.