Telecom & Wireless

This Is the Most Expensive Place to Call on the Phone

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: February 3, 2022 9:30 am

Before cellphone international call plans, calling overseas could cost well over $10 a minute. Skype and other VoIP services cut that cost to basically zero, but some people continue to use their phones and not PC-based products like Skype.

Today, wireless international call plans have brought the price to make calls to as little as $15 a month for unlimited overseas phone calls. Prices can vary, however, passed on the use of cellphones, landlines and texting.

There is no single standard for the most expensive overseas calls, which are usually those from landlines. Sometimes, rates can be lower if they are made by people who are part of a large organization. Universities have international call plans. Several tech companies also offer plans to cut prices.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the call plan offered to students, faculty and employees of the University of Michigan. The plan covers well over 100 countries. Calls to Mexico and Canada are usually the least expensive with plans like these. The university’s International Long-Distance Call Rates has a service that allows people to search by country. Our analysis of these rates excluded Marisat (satellite, for ships at sea) rates that are usually $7 a minute.

To call many countries, it costs less than $0.20 a minute. There does not appear to be a pattern based on country or population size.

The most expensive place to call is St. Helena, at $4.05 a minute. It is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is ruled by the United Kingdom. Discovered in 1502, it covers 47 square miles and has a population of 4,439. Passenger arrivals and departures over the year from October 2020 to September 2021 totaled about 1,500.

St. Helena may be the most expensive place to call, but, based on its population, almost no one calls there.