IMPORTANT
Please read and print these instructions now and also put them in your luggage for reference in London.
BEFORE THE TRIP
Your cellphone will probably not work in Europe. This is well and good, because if it does work, your American service provider will probably charge you about two dollars per minute, both for calls back to the United States and for local calls within London. Leave it at home.
If you are taking a laptop, consider picking up a "magicJack" available from Walgreen's or CVS or Best Buy or Walmart. Also pick up the cheapest corded phone you can buy (about seven dollars). This should be a phone that is telephone-line-powered and does not require plugging into an electric outlet. Your magicJack will plug into your computer's USB port, and you then plug the phone into the magicJack. Presto! You have an American phone number in your dormitory room (your choice of U.S. area codes when you set it up). Calls to anywhere in the United States are free. Calls from your home town to your magicJack number are also free. Voice mail is free. If you wish to use magicJack to call England, you can also buy foreign minutes on line from magicJack. It will cost you less to call London from your magicJack phone than from a London-based cell phone! (Do not buy a cordless phone for use with magicJack. Cordless phones in England work on different frequencies, and an American cordless will simply not work in England.)
Once in London, also consider getting a cheap prepaid cellphone from O2 (locations throughout London), or from Carphone Warehouse (locations likewise throughout London). Enroll in O2's "Your Country" plan for 200 free minutes each month to the USA.
If you plan on calling the United States, or on being called from the United States, and if you will not be using magicJack, now would be a good time for you (or your significant other) to contact your and/or their long distance service provider and sign up on one or another “Call Europe” or international calling plan. Without an international calling plan, calls from the United States to England will run up to $1 per minute, and calling card calls from England to the United States may run that much or more, plus a surcharge of up to $4 every time you use the card! You could easily come home to a $500 phone bill!
Warn your friends and family of the outrageous cost of calling you without an international calling plan. But if you have a magicJack number, a call to you is a local call if made from your home town!
With a calling plan, expect a call to cost your friends and relatives 10 or 12 cents per minute. Also ask your long distance service provider about any per-call surcharge on any calling-card calls you make from England to the United States.
It is suggested that you consider taping the call with your long distance service provider. There is a very real possibility that they may forget that you signed up for their international calling plan! In Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee and some other states, it is perfectly legal for a party to record his or her conversation with another for purposes of keeping a record of what was said, and it is not necessary to inform the other party to the conversation that he or she is being recorded. In some states, however, this is illegal.
It is also suggested that you keep notes of the name of the person with whom you spoke, their employee identification number, what was said, and the date and time of the conversation.
There's another option, but only for your friends and family who will be calling you on your British prepaid cellphone (or any non-cellphone number in London). That option is for your family or friends to use Tel3Advantage. They offer a flat two-cent-a-minute rate on calls to landline phones in London. There are no hidden charges. Your professor has been using this service for about seven years and finds it satisfactory. There is no need to change one's regular (1+) long distance provider, either. This company cannot help with calls originating from London, but the rate is wonderful for those who will be making calls to London.
For yet other options, see the Tel3Advantage, Net2Phone and Skype options discussed below.
CALLING LONDON TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Telephones in Great Britain have area codes and phone numbers. Area codes may consist of three or more digits. “Freephone” (toll-free) numbers begin with (0800).
The London area code is (020). London’s area code is followed by eight digits. A typical London telephone number is written as follows: (020) 7040 5060.
If you are calling the above number from within London, omit the area code and dial only the last eight digits. Local calls in London are charged, even when made from home or business phones.
If you are calling from within England but outside London, dial both the area code and the telephone number.
For those calling the above number, (020) 7040 5060, from the United States, they would:
dial America’s international access code, 011 then the country code for the UK, 44 then the area code, omitting the initial zero, 20 then the telephone number, 7040 5060 The result would be: 011 + 44 + 20 + 7040 5060
WAYS TO CALL FROM ENGLAND TO THE UNITED STATES
You can call the United States in two ways: (a) using a calling card issued by your home long distance service provider; (b) using the British system.
(a) Using an American calling card. You can use the calling card issued by your home long distance service, billed to your home phone. It is hoped you will do this only if you have an international calling plan, lest the cost be prohibitive.
Using AT&T’s “USA Direct” service, or Sprint’s comparable service, you dial a British 0800 number. At that point, you are connected to your telephone carrier in the United States. You therefore dial the call as you would any calling card call made within the United States: just the area code and telephone number.
Simply dial the British toll-free (0800) number of your American long distance service provider. If your service provider is AT&T, MCI, or Sprint, the number is as shown below. Click on the carrier’s name to be connected to their web site’s instructions on calling home from abroad.
Carrier Access numbers AT&T 0800 89-0011
0500 89-0011Sprint 0800 89 0877 American prepaid calling cards, such as ones on sale in post offices or convenience stores in the United States, will not work from the United Kingdom.
Using British prepaid calling cards. Prepaid calling cards useable in the United Kingdom can be bought from newsagents. British calling cards are similar to prepaid calling cards in the United States. You dial a free 0800 access number, then the PIN of the prepaid calling card, and then the number you are calling. They may be used from any telephone booth to make calls within London and calls back to the United States. But be aware that just about everyone in the UK has a mobile phone, so telephone booths are becoming as rare in England as they have become in the US.
DIALING A NUMBER IN
THE UNITED STATES FROM ENGLAND
Dialing the United States. If you were calling the law school faculty offices in Baton Rouge, (225) 771-4900, for example, using a British prepaid calling card , you would first dial the 0800 number on the card, then your PIN, and then the following. If calling from a British cellphone, you would simply dial the following:
dial the UK’s international access code, 00 then the country code for the USA, 1 then the area code, 225 for Baton Rouge then the telephone number, 771-4900 The result would be: 00 + 1 + 225 + 771-4900
OTHER OPTIONS
An account with www.Tel3advantage.com will enable people in the United States to call you cheaply, but will be useless to you in originating calls from the UK.
Accounts with www.Net2Phone.com and www.Skype.com are alternatives to magicJack. The clarity of the connections may be less than perfect, but the cost is dirt cheap.
BRITISH DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE
The number to dial is 118 500. Online, you can access yellow pages at http://www.yell.co.uk or white pages at http://www.bt.com.
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