Calling Cards.

Calling cards are popularly known as phone cards and IDD cards all over the world. These cards are very popular in the USA, India and Middle East countries. They are being sold as pre-paid and re-chargeable ones by phone companies. Most of them are sold by International companies through their online websites. They allow you to purchase virtual calling cards too with automatic top up facility, if the customer agrees for it. Many online VoIP companies too are selling virtual phone cards through their websites. In the early days once the value of the card is spent on calling, it can be thrown away. Some Card companies allow you to top up following their instructions. Also when purchasing them online, you can select auto top up facility. These phone cards allow you to make calls within a country and to dial IDD calls through public phone booths. If you have any of these cards you don't need to put coins to make calls in the phone booth any more. Currently in Sri Lanka, IDD phone card sales had declined or nearly vanished as people are having WhatsApp Messenger in their Smartphones to call foreign friends at cheaper rates.

In the USA during the Holiday season people used to donate Calling Cards to their Armed Forces in foreign land to call back their homes. Every year thousands of people used to donate these cards to the Armed Forces. In the meantime lots of people have the habit of presenting Phone Cards to elderly relatives during the Holiday season to call their relatives to exchange their happiness with them.

During the Christmas and New Year holidays America and Philippines citizen used to purchase lot of phone cards to call their loved ones staying overseas.

IM Apps like WhatsApp, Viber, Snapchat and others are becoming popular and nearly all the people have Smartphones to make International calls. Due to the popularity of IM Apps, Phone cards are seeing steep drop in their sales all over the world. People are using Smartphone with their Mobile Data plan to call others who have both these with them. So there is no need to make calls through phone cards. Because of this and drop in their revenue, lot of Arab Countries had banned the IM App calls through Smartphones in their countries.

Phone cards are widely sold in the USA, Europe and in the Middle East. These cards can be physical or virtual ones. Expatriate workers in the Middle East used to depend on these phone cards to call their homes. Meanwhile USA cards are sold during the festive seasons as lot of people used to call their family and friends to during this time. Card sellers used to offer discount rates before and around X-Mas and New Year season. These cards are valid for certain period only unless it is mentioned otherwise. On the other hand there are virtual phone cards are available in the online websites. To buy these cards people must use their plastic cards through the website. In addition, in Sri Lanka popularity of these phone cards are declining as more people are turning to WhatsApp and Viber like IM programs.

You can find plenty of methods to pay for the calls you make to Sri Lanka. One of it is the use of phone cards. These cards serve only one purpose which is to allow the buyer to make calls. These are called with different names such as Asia Boost to attract the buyers. In Srilanka all the telephone service providers and mobile phone service providers are selling their own phone cards, IDD Cards and Data Cards for their customers and general public. They are meant for dialing local phone lines, IDD, chat, data plan card and Wi-Fi usage. These cards are scratch and use type, and good for one time use only. Once you had entered the code in to your phone and converted it in to cash then you can throw the card away. Call cards used to have prepaid money value in any desirable currency in them. And can be bought from telephone companies, kiosks and online web sites using your credit card. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines and Sri Lanka workers working in the Arab Countries used to buy lot of calling cards and Phones cards to call back their home specially on Fridays and Sundays.

Pre-Paid IDD Cards.

The pre-paid IDD phone cards comes as the size of a credit card with magnetic bar or memory chip on it or with a secret number under the scratch-able aluminum paint coating on the card. You can buy them from US$ 5, 10, and 20 and so on. Before buying a card, check whether it is good for the destination that you are going to call. Some cards are good for calling USA, if you used it to call UK, it may be an expensive call and you will get less calling minutes than the USA call. So find out good one for calling a certain destination. Also you can ask your friends or relatives to recommend you a web site or a card company that can give plenty of calling minutes for your cash. These cards may charge high value for the first minute and will become cheaper for the following minutes. These types of cards should be used to talk continuously. If you are not willing to make calls continuously, then find another card that can suit your requirements.

In Sri Lanka these cards had lost their popularity with the mass. You can buy these phone cards in phone arcades, phone shops and private communication centers too. You can see the "Buy Phone Cards here" sign in most of these places. Also there are some shops in major cities sale the Gold card which is not a card but they will provide a user name and password for you to call from your internet connected PC through VoIP. Just connect your headphone set and dial through the provided softphone in the PC. Sri Lanka phone users mostly depend on their Smartphones to call overseas and there is less number of public phone booths to use phone cards in public places.

In Sri Lanka you can buy phone reload cards from each of the phone carriers.
Also you can buy Data plan cards. These are simple to use reload cards that come as scratch able ones. They are available from Rs 20/- up to Rs 400/- in value.
Don't forget you have to reload data and call minutes to your Sri Lanka mobile phone separately.

If you are a visiting Tourist, buy a local SIM card and activate it to get cheaper calls. Even the Data plan too will allow you to access your WhatsApp and Viber accounts to make free calls through them to your friends.

Tourists Plan - Dialog

Tourist Pack | Mobitel