Most popular calling destination

This is a bit of a trivia knowledge, not sure how useful it might be. If you ever wonder what countries people residing in the United States call the most, you might be a bit surprised. A person would think it's got to be Mexico and other countries in Latin America.

That's not the case. Most of the calls originating in the U.S. are long distance inside the country. When it comes to international calls, Russia takes the top spot. Second most popular is Great Britain, followed by India. As for right now, the fourth most popular foreign calling destination for people living in the United States is Iraq.

Below is current list. For an updated version visit the weekly updated stats page found on prepaid.russiacards.com.

Country	iso-code	sales%
USA - Continental	us	32.77
Russia	ru	3.42
UK	gb	3.10
India	in	2.58
Iraq	iq	2.20
Germany	de	1.97
Ukraine	ua	1.90
Philippines	ph	1.50
Australia	au	1.46
Mexico	mx	1.46
Mongolia	mn	1.39
Canada	ca	1.28
Afghanistan	af	1.20
Korea South	kr	1.11
France	fr	1.10
China	cn	1.10
Japan	jp	1.10
Italy	it	1.05
South Africa	za	0.95
Nigeria	ng	0.95
Brazil	br	0.78
UAE	ae	0.78
Spain	es	0.75
Israel	il	0.72
Colombia	co	0.69
Qatar	qa	0.64
Belarus	by	0.58
Bulgaria	bg	0.58
Thailand	th	0.56
Peru	pe	0.52
Ghana	gh	0.51
Myanmar (Burma)	mm	0.51
Kenya	ke	0.51
Dominican Rep.	do	0.50
Saudi Arabia	sa	0.49
Poland	pl	0.49
Jamaica	jm	0.49
Romania	ro	0.48
Pakistan	pk	0.47
Iran	ir	0.47
Uzbekistan	uz	0.46
Jordan	jo	0.44
Kazakhstan	kz	0.44
Turkey	tr	0.42
Egypt	eg	0.41
Taiwan	tw	0.39
Ecuador	ec	0.37
Cameroon	cm	0.36
Netherlands	nl	0.36
Serbia	yu	0.35
Costa Rica	cr	0.34
Argentina	ar	0.34
Ireland	ie	0.34
Venezuela	ve	0.34
Moldova	md	0.33
Vietnam	vn	0.32
Bosnia&Herz.	ba	0.32
Indonesia	id	0.30
Lebanon	lb	0.30
New Zealand	nz	0.29
Switzerland	ch	0.28
Haiti	ht	0.28
Morocco	ma	0.28
Czech Rep.	cz	0.26
Greece	gr	0.26
Austria	at	0.26
Kuwait	kw	0.25
Honduras	hn	0.24
Trinidad&Tobago	tt	0.24
Cuba	cu	0.24
Chile	cl	0.24
Tanzania	tz	0.24
Bangladesh	bd	0.24
Nepal	np	0.23
Guatemala	gt	0.22
Kyrgyzstan	kg	0.22
Malaysia	my	0.22
Syria	sy	0.22
Ethiopia	et	0.21
Panama	pa	0.20
Hong Kong	hk	0.19
Cambodia	kh	0.18
Macedonia	mk	0.18
Sweden	se	0.18
Guyana	gy	0.17
Hungary	hu	0.17
Nicaragua	ni	0.17
Bolivia	bo	0.17
Liberia	lr	0.16
El Salvador	sv	0.16
Georgia	ge	0.16
Uganda	ug	0.15
Singapore	sg	0.15
Senegal	sn	0.14
Lithuania	lt	0.14
Azerbaijan	az	0.14
Slovakia	sk	0.13
Croatia	hr	0.13
Sri Lanka	lk	0.12
Latvia	lv	0.12

How to call Internationally

1. Using your long distance provider.
The most readily available means of calling from US internationally is to pick up your phone, dial the international access code - 011 - then the country code, followed by the area code and the local number. Though this method is perhaps the easiest, it is, unfortunately, the most expensive one. Depending on the country you are calling, the rates could be as high as $3 a minute.

2. Phone cards bought at a retail location.
A cheaper alternative is to use a calling card - a prepaid debit phone card. You purchase a certain amount of minutes that are subtracted with each call you make. A phone card might have either a toll-free or a local access number that you dial from your home phone or perhaps a cell phone. Phone cards can be purchased at a gas station, a grocery store, a warehouse club, retail stores, etc. While using a prepaid phone card bought from a brick-and-mortar retailer will save you money over using your home long distance company, you will still end up paying extra for a little piece of plastic the card is printed on and for the retailer's overhead.

3. Phone cards purchased online.
The cheapest alternative is to buy prepaid phone cards online. This is not a brand new technology, in fact it's been around for over ten years. The phone cards you find online are often from the same companies that sell them in retail locations, but because they are saving money on printing, marketing and delivering those cards to brick-and-mortar locations (and giving retailers their share to pay for their overhead), they offer you the same services at a much lower price.

As we've mentioned before, the sales of online phone cards have been around for years. In these years, only those companies that offered the best quality for the best price have been able to survive the competition. Moreover, certain companies specialize on certain locations; it is best to shop around different international phone card providers to find the best rates. For example, one company might offer the best rate for calling Mexico, but if you are looking for calling card to call Russia, you won't get the most competitive rates.

With that in mind, there are online stores that offer you a variety of calling cards only from those companies that have been around for years and who have been consistent in receiving a positive customer feedback. One such store is Calling Card Calls, representing a Boston-based communications corporation that has been in business since 1996.