could use Keku for a very limited circle of friends and family - you have to register their phones on your account, so you can give them a local phone number for them that will connect with your mobile when you are traveling in their country.

I just received a letter from T-Mobile informing me that my old grandfathered plan will be converted to a very favorable new Select Value plan, which I presume includes the new roaming package. I must say that this will probably greatly reduce any need on my part for local or international prepaids. I'll still keep myTelnaMobile and Mobal SIMs as backups but but doubt they'll see much use.

DRN -
TM says they now have thousands of old plans out there and hope to get that number below 50 in the next few months. I would double check that the new plan they are giving you (probably better than the rest of us have) does include the new "free" intl roaming. In one place they say new plans after March 2013 are included, another place they say "Simple Choice or New Classic" are included.
TM is definitely not all together on rolling this out. It is supposed to start in 2 days on Monday Oct. 20 - and diff. parts of their web site have diff. info. One page says it doesn't start until Oct 31. Other pages say hi-speed data options are available - but they haven't posted the exact packages and prices, yet. (The free data they claim is capped at 128Kbs. which is fine for email and Google maps.)
I'll report on all this next month. Will use it in China and Hong Kong Oct 27 - Nov 8.

Over on Flyertalk's tech forum, there are a couple of people who have used their throttled data and said that it was good enough for Google Maps, cautious music streaming, and email.

Depending on its latency (remember it is throttled HSPA, not true EDGE), you probably could do VOIP Over 3g with the 729 codec.

Stu -
We'll be in China which only has 3G on one of its 2 carriers. I'll know which one TM roams on (both?) in a couple days. No HSPA there, yet. Only used wifi calling and Piranha when there last.

Let me be clear, I am only suggesting Hushed as a solution for ten days or less and then only forwarded to a cheap number such as a US or Canadian number ( or UK landline).

I am going yo Costa Rica on holiday next month. Piranha is .06 a minute inbound and Telna is .07. My wife and I have ATT unlimited international data. Unless we decide to tether, a single Hushed Costa Rica number forwarded to my Asterisks box and an IVR handles are limited local calls.

If I wanted something longterm, this is not the way to go.

Other places I get foreign DIDs are mydivert, didww, etc. I'd love to create a members only part of this forum where we can help each other out on foreign DIDs when needed. I run IVRs on many of my DIDs and if I know you, I have no problem forwarding some calls for you to a cheap termination point or SIP URI. Conversely, I have a few that I occasionally need. Since half of us have known each other for years, I think this would be an easy thing to do.

Snidely, sorry but I don't Turkmenistan DIDs laying around.

http://www.acronymfinder.com/Informa...ology/IVR.html

lists 17 meaning for the acronym IVR.
Here are the telecom related:
I am going to assume your usage is Intelligent Voice Routing.
Sometimes what is obvious to the writer is cryptic to the reader.

In VoIP terms IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response (voice menu with DTMF input).

Vlad is correct. Calling +1-212-555-1212, ext 1 rings my mobile, ext 2 rings my wife's, ext. 3 rings Joe Bloe. Calls from a specific mobile (determined by caller-id) drops you to a US dialtone, etc.