[Idyllchat] prepaid phone cards in Italy?

[pandjking at sbcglobal.net]

Perhaps the cards we used were not this type (I'm thinking particularly of 
Switzerland and Spain) but our cost to call the US from a card-only pay 
phone wasn't anywhere near 50 cents a minute.  The Swiss ones were actually 
far less expensive to call home than to call across town (to a cell phone)! 
We were in CH during the flooding last August, and one 5-euro card allowed 
us several calls to various people here in the States to explain the 
situation and reschedule arrangements for our homecoming.  I seem to 
remember a 75-cent connection charge when the called party answered and then 
between 5 and 10 cents a minute after that.

>
> In Germany, as well as some other European countries, there are phone
> cards that are only for use in public telephones / telephone booths.
> They will have a smart chip visibly embedded in the plastic, and you
> must insert them into the pay phone when you want to make a phone
> call.  These are useful when you don't want to carry a lot of change
> or when the payphones have been updated to only accept these cards.
> However, the rates for international calling on these cards are not
> competitive at all -- you can pay anywhere from 50 cents to 1 euro a
> minute (I'm not certain what the rate is anymore) to call the US.
>