Yackie or Hop Mobile?...or another?

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by snidely

Of course those of us in the USA would use our regular phone - and, supposedly it is illegal for us to go to Cuba. Travelers have to go hours out of the way via Mexico (or Canada), even though Cuba is only about 150km away! Cingular and T-Mobile, for that reason, don't allow their customers to roam there.

Yes, I realise that. But the "thread starter", Teothx is from Italy and is interested in the entire world...

Originally Posted by snidely

Many of us forward all incoming calls to our cell when we are away from home or office. We don't want people to have to dial an intl. number. Most friends, clients etc. won't do that. The rates charged for intl. calls vary quite a bit. One problem is that a majority local landline companies don't allow you to forward to intl. numbers. I now use VoiceStick to do that. That is one reason Yackie and CelTrek are interesting to U.S. customers.

Yes, again I know about that - it has been mentioned by US forumers here. After all, I agree that being accessible under one national number worldwide is one the main ideas (and advantages) of international roaming - the "only" issue is the price for that "pleasure" . But again, the thread was started by a European who may think different (but I don't claim I know what he really thinks ).
Somehow OT - if the Americans don't like int' calls so much, how do they avoid calling to Canada or Carribean/Pacific nations which also use +1 NANP numbering??? Does anybody know "at a glance" that the given 3-digit area code is from USA or not???

[snidely]

Originally Posted by Przemolog

Somehow OT - if the Americans don't like int' calls so much, how do they avoid calling to Canada or Carribean/Pacific nations which also use +1 NANP numbering??? Does anybody know "at a glance" that the given 3-digit area code is from USA or not???

We can NOT tell at a glance if an area code is intl. (like Canada). It isn't a problem, usually, because when the old Bell system was broken up, you have to pick a separate carrier to handle LD calls. Calls to Canada are cheaper on some carrier than calls to U.S. numbers - because termination rates are cheaper in Canada.
Egregious exceptions are there. Eg. Our office in the S.Eastern U.S. in Bell South territory has a plan for the landlines with unlimited local and LD (within U.S.) for $50/mo. IF, unknowingly, you dial a Canadian number, you pay over 50 cents/min.
To avoid that happening, we pd. them $5/line extra to block intl. cals. Their own system doesn't recognize calls to Canada as being intl and they show up on the bill. Each month someone has to call them to have the charges removed.

...mike