Keeping In Touch

Lots of people have been asking about keeping in touch while I'm gone. It sounds like for the first three months I'll have reasonably ready access to e-mail. After that, when I'm at my site, e-mail might be trickier, but I'll be issued a cell phone and have FREE incoming calls and text messages (although service availability is TBD). So I've been researching calling programs, plans and rates and other similar topics. I'll post the fruits of my labor — the ones that seem like good leads — here, although know that I haven't tried them out or anything. Be discriminating!

Koala Calling ($0.082 per minute)
They charge your credit card monthly or whenever you spend $200, whichever comes first. NOTE: Most calling services charge different (higher) rates to call a mobile phone, and my number will be a mobile, so be careful of this. This company doesn't indicate whether this is the land line rate only or if it's the same either way; check first.

NobelCom "Hello Dominican Republic Cellular" phone card
This is a rechargeable phone card that you can buy in increments as small as $20. The per-minute rate is $0.089 per minute, but they charge in 4-minute increments. The company offers cards with shorter billing increments, but the per-minute rate is higher. The good thing is their rates are broken out so this is the rate you'd actually pay to call my cell phone. They do, however, charge a $0.99/week maintenance fee, and I can't tell whether there's a connection fee per call.