The days of calling cards are numbered

Calling cards used to be the savvy traveller’s way of keeping in touch while out and about in the big, wide world. Cheaper than normal landline calling rates, especially when calling from abroad and entirely portable they were indispensible for many globe trotters.

But, that was in the days before laptops, Wi-Fi, internet cafes and smartphones. In today’s ever-advancing technological times, what seems an essential in one decade can easily be obsolete in the very next, and it appears that the same fate is about to befall the once indispensible calling card.

Offering big discounts for calling a special number from a payphone then entering your long personal code to get access to your desired number, a pre-paid calling card used to offer great value. It was also a guaranteed way of staying in touch with loved ones and colleagues while you were away. But, something better and much cheaper has come along to threaten the very existence of the calling card.

Smartphones are now sophisticated computers that come complete with memory storage capability undreamed of a decade ago. The latest handsets are capable of instantly downloading a range of applications, including messaging and chat software. That development along with the widespread availability of Wi-Fi and affordable portable devices, including Wi-Fi enabled notebooks is what could finally sound the death knell for calling cards.

Simply log-in to a WiFi area and your handset becomes something much better than a discounted calling card. It becomes a phone on which you can make free voice calls to anywhere in the world; providing of course the person you are trying to call is online using the same messenger software as you. Failing that you could always chat online for free, even if you are not connected to Wi-Fi. For example, anyone with an iphone 3G can download one of a variety of messenger applications on which free chat can be enabled even over the 3G network.

Furthermore with selected applications available on the iphone, other smart phones such as Blackberrys and a whole host of laptops using Windows and Mac operating systems it is also possible to call regular landlines and mobiles in other countries cheaper than using your mobile phone plan.

Some applications offer the user to opt for a monthly or annual subscription, which then allows them to call phones in other countries for free. So, the days of the limited-time use, fiddly long number dialling and complicated access-coded calling cards are definitely numbered; certainly amongst savvy technology users.