My Trip To Israel - Thinking About Telecommunications

Lately I've realized that I need to go off the grid. I had this really bad cell phone that doesn't work half the time, and I needed to charge it up pretty frequently. I lost it at the worst time possible- I was away from home, visiting friends I needed to contact. Luckily I remembered their numbers but I had to use a payphone.

Looking back on the experience and looking forward to a trip to Israel this summer, I am considering my options: I could buy another cell phone, pay the exorbidant full price or extend my contract another two years to get a discount. What a disaster, the cell phone company has me hostage. I could try to find a used phone but to find one with a simcard would be hard.

My only other options for telephone use are to get a prepaid phone or to get a phone card. The trouble with a prepaid is that I have no idea what the fine print of contracts says (I don't have time for such details) and I suspect that my minutes might wear down quickly.

If I had had a calling card when I lost my phone I would not have been under such duress as to need to withdraw cash from an ATM just to get change to use the phone. I would have felt a lot better knowing I have some way to make a phone call without asking to borrow someone else's.

I am planning a trip to Israel this summer and I will probably want to make at least a couple of phone calls while I'm there, although I usually don't make calls when I'm on vacation. Another problem with a prepaid phone is that I don't know whether it will work overseas. So I'm probably just gonna check out some international calling cards to see how expensive they would be. Probably not difficult to use and rather cheap in today's world of high connectivity and infrastructure.