Phone cards are intimately connected with long distance calls. In fact, they go hand in hand. The reasons for this can be grouped into three:

Economy is the watch word in phone cards. A person calling through payphone will have to pay huge amount as calling charges. On the other hand phone card saves the telephone bill by about 50% to 80%. That speaks how costly is payphone. Apart from this, other payments like service charges, taxes, connectivity charges will have to be paid for calls made through payphone. In phone cards these payments are exempt.

The other advantage is that dedicated tariff plans can be bought for calling particular country or calling zone. Callers are offered discounts on purchase of these dedicated calling plans. In addition to this, frequent callers are offered some more discounts. Those who visit the particular country frequently and stay there for considerable length of time would purchase a SIM in that country. Thereby all calls for persons in that country is considered as domestic call. That will be cause further reduction in telephone charges. Perhaps no other calling plan has this facility of specific destination calls.

The calling companies have helpline. The helpline offers a unique assistance. The caller who frequently calls the particular country or calling region has the option to register the telephone number he frequently calls. So, whenever he wants to call any of the registered number, all that he has to do is to dial the number allotted to him by the service provider. Thereafter he is navigated to the mode where he has registered the different numbers. The caller can select the required number and press the ‘call’ button of his mobile. He is connected to the required number.

Picture from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phonecards/570228759/