[Kris18]

Does anyone know which company offers the lowest cost for someone who will be calling the U.S. frequently? I would also like to have text messaging, internet access, email access, and possibly Skype access.

Is it even possible to get all that here in HK?

Thanks for the help! I'm truly a newbie!

Kris

[PDLM]

People tend to buy international calls separately from the underlying phone service here.

Personally I would go:

PCCW (http://www.pccw.com/eng/) for the fixed/fax line

probably Sunday (http://www.sunday.com , now a subsidiary of PCCW) for the mobile because they had the best international SMS deals last time I looked

Netvigator/NOW for internet (http://www.netvigator.com) and Broadband TV (www.nowbroadbandtv.com)

IDT1529 (http://www.idt1529.net) for the international calls (HK$0.18 to the US from a mobile, with HK$28=155 minutes to the US as an online signup bonus).

[Aj149]

3 + HGC has an IDD package (1966) that you can add for $38 to your monthly cell bill which gives you unlimited calling to the states and other countries. The minutes used come out of your monthly allotment.

[KnowItAll]

Avoid Sunday -- horrible coverage in Hong Kong. Stops working in many places.

Your best bets are to get a Vonage number in the US and use that from Hong Kong.

[back2HK]

Originally Posted by KnowItAll

Avoid Sunday -- horrible coverage in Hong Kong. Stops working in many places.

KIA, Any comments on the coverage (normal voice) of Peoples & Smartone?

I need an additional SIM for the next month or so. I use CSL, because they always had the best coverage, but their prepaid seems to be ridiculously priced.

I don't use a home line, so the usage will be quite heavy..

Cheers

[PDLM]

Originally Posted by KnowItAll

Your best bets are to get a Vonage number in the US and use that from Hong Kong.

Provided of course that you are happy to make all your calls from within your home (or do you carry your Vonage box around with you and plug it in at, say, Pacific Coffee?).

Moreover, you might also find the attached stats interesting regarding the rapidly falling quality of Voice over Public Internet calls (courtesy of http://www.testyourvoip.com & BrixNet).

Personally I now have about a one in three success ratio making Skype calls to The Philippines, for example.

[KnowItAll]

PDLM : Vonage on a stick. Seriously, you cannot use your Skype FUD with Vonage (although they're they've run out of karma and rumors are they're about to go down..).

The question was "lowest rate to US" .. which I still do think is through a stateside VOIP service and not a HK based bill by the minute service.

Back2HK : Avoid People's too, seem to be a third tier service in HK. Smartone has great coverage, have been a happy customer of theirs for several years and have yet to come across major areas where I cannot get a signal (which is true for Sunday / PCCW in places like Cyberport .. imagine..). Three is also excellent in my opinion.

[back2HK]

Smartone has great coverage, have been a happy customer of theirs for several years

Cheers.. Smartone it will be .....

[Kris18]

Just to clarify. I'm looking for a mobile phone plan not a voice over IP plan or home internet access.

I'm hoping to use a cell phone for the majority of my calls. In the U.S. I use my cell for surfing the web, email, text messaging, calls, and as a PDA/Planner.

I'm just hoping to figure out which carrier will let me call back to the U.S. for cheap and hopefully use text messaging and internet on the plan as well.

Thanks for all the help everyone!

Kris

[PDLM]

Like I said - in HK you buy your international calls separately from your underlying mobile phone plan (or at least if you don't and just dial +1 <area code> <number> you're going to be paying about 10-20 times more than you need to).

For the best coverage choose from CSL, 3 or Smartone. All do SMS, internet access and so on.

For the best price - you really need to just shop around and find out what this week's best offers are that suit your needs - packages and bundles change weekly. If you need a new device then you can get, for example, quad-band Blackberries for "free" if you are going to be here long enough to make a 12 month commitment, and so on. There are literally hundreds of price packages available, with or without bundled devices - you just need to go talk to the operators.