Phone cards: you call a 1-800 number, enter the code on the card, and then dial the phone number you want to call. You usually have to listen to an ad somewhere during this process. My mom uses phone cards and doesn't have long distance service on her phone, so I've never actually used the cards myself, just watched her do it.

You should be able to find phone cards for 4 cents a minute or so, and beware "local calls only" cards- my mom got one of those once by mistake.

As for the cell phone- are you talking about something like a pre-paid phone? I don't know much about those, but I hear they're pricey if you plan to talk on them a lot. If you're just going to have it for emergencies, it's more practical.

I assume that with prepaid phone cards, you're burning minutes whether the calls are incoming or outgoing, right? That seems to have happened to a friend of mine last night in mid-call.

She's a French graduate student doing a spring/summer internship & living in metro Boston. She'll be be there thru the end of June (I think) and (I think) has a cell phone but no coverage plan. Should I look into saving her money by temporarily adding her to my T-Mobile plan? Anybody know more about this than I?

I assume that with prepaid phone cards, you're burning minutes whether the calls are incoming or outgoing, right?

No, only outgoing. (Assuming you're talking about a land line phone here.)

(sorry -- I had to go away from the computer and thought I'd clicked the "Post" button.)

Thanx, BPCs.

I talked to T-Mobile, and the kicker here seems to be that the way they'd want to work adding her to my plan and removing her 4 months later is a cancellation fee of $200. I *could* add her and make her swear not to use the phone once she returned to France, I suppose...

BPCs, I'm using a cell phone and I think she is as well.

BPCs, we're both using cell phones. I don't know where hers came from -- whether French phones can work in American cell networks or her host family supplied it or she bought one without a plan.

If you're talking about cell phones, take a look at prepaid rather than adding her to your plan. I've been happy with T-Mobile prepaid, but I buy my minutes 1000 at a time ($100) -- so that would be $25 a month for 4 months for 250 minutes per month. For cellular in the US, you use minutes whether it's an incoming or outgoing call. If you buy fewer minutes at a time, you pay a much much higher per-minute price (which is kind of a ripoff).

If she has an unlocked GSM phone that works in the US, then she can get a SIM card from a T-mobile store for about $15-20. Or she can get a phone with a SIM and a few minutes of airtime for $30.

This may sound very cynical, and it may be, but I'd rather suggest you get her a temporary pay-as-you go phone than add her to your account. I've watched too many of those TV judge shows to think otherwise. Too many people end up getting screwed by friends who ran up ridiculous cell phone bills and then wouldn't pay. I'm sure many of them didn't intend to use up as many minutes as they did, but many people don't pay attention to their usage anyway. Prepaid is the way to go.