What is the cheapest way to stay in contact with England from Australia?

Question

I would like to stay in touch via text or mobile calls during the day. What is the cheapest way to do this? Are there any phone companies which supply good deals on international text ?

Answer 1

Look into Skype.

Answer 2

Skype is good, check out Engin. Telstra has a very good overseas phone plan, especially to England and the USA.

Answer 3

Get yahoo instant messanger, if both you and your family and friends, have downloaded instant messanger, no matter the country, you can press "call" on your messanger page to call their computer and talk as long as you'd like for free. I've used it before and even talked to people in America and you can hear eachother pretty much instantly just like a phone call. It's awesome and yahoo charges nothing to use that service. As long as both you and them have a mic and as long as the mic is working it works. You can even plug in your webcam to see eachother at the same time as talk if you wish. Other instant message services like msn don't seem to have that, e.g. msn has a thing where u can record a message and then send the message instantly but with yahoo instant messanger you just keep talking and talking and it's like a real phone call. :]

A hint too, it only works if you download the messanger, e.g. like if you just sign into yahoo messanger through the yahoo home page without downloading it's, many of its features aren't available, but if both you and them download yahoo messanger and sign in through your computer not the website all these features are available to you.