The Grim State of Overseas Calling

Get ready: The cost of international mobile voice and data is getting downright obscene.

Calling home -- or the home office -- from abroad was never cheap. But if you were careful and crafty, you could communicate affordably: My favorite trick was to pick up a cheap phone or calling card in the local country I was visiting. But in this age of the no-value American Peso -- oh sorry, dollar -- that is all changing for the worse.

Sure, foreign carriers -- say, a Vodafone Group (VOD Quote) or Orange SA (OGE Quote) -- are still happy to sell you a cheap 20-euro phone and a pay-as-you-go plan in say, 50 euro increments. But how those euros are charged against real minutes depends on many factors such as the county you are dialing from and to. ...