If you’ve been researching which type of Telestial SIM you need for your vacation or travel plans, you may have seen reference to the phrase “call back”. This is not some vague promise to get back to you, but rather a clever bit of technology that helps you save even more money on your international calls.
Traditional calls are pretty simple – you dial the number, and the signal travels in one direction via your phone to the phone of the person you are calling. Since you are the person who started the call, you are the one who pays for it. But when you are in another country, the cost of these calls can start to get expensive. It’s much cheaper to receive a call, but then that leaves you with two problems: firstly, the person on the other end will be charged more for an international call, and secondly, they are probably not psychic and won’t know that you want to speak to them.
Call back makes it so that both of you are receiving the call. Here’s how it works: you dial the number as normal. Instead of giving you a ringing tone and connecting you straight away, your phone hangs up and calls you back. When you answer, you’ll hear the ringing tone just as if you’d made a regular call, and as soon as it is answered, your call can continue as normal.
It does take a little bit of getting used to. Because phones don’t traditionally work this way, our natural instinct is to hold the phone to our ear when we’ve dialed a number. It can be a bit of a shock (and a bit annoying) when your phone starts ringing while you’ve got it held to your ear, but any irritation is soothed right away when you realize that this is all in aid of saving you money.
