If you live in the States, your mobile phone plan most likely includes nationwide long distance, but you may still use a calling card for your international calls. If you live in Canada, your plan most likely does NOT include nationwide long distance, since most plans in Canada are for local calls only, and by local I don’t even mean your Province, just your local city’s area.
The BlackBerry phone allows for such things as a calling card, not only as a separate entry but also as an additional number for your contacts. What I mean is that you can have one entry titled “calling card” and have your calling card information, such as the access number, pause, and calling card number. This is great if you dial different numbers, not already in your address book, and don’t want to manually dial your calling card sequence every time.
Another option is to actually add this calling card sequence to your existing contacts in the additional fields available in the BlackBerry address book. For example, if I have John Doe in my address book with number 416-123-4567, I can have another entry with the calling card sequence and John Doe’s number, as shown in the above screenshot. The address book allows for pauses to be inserted automatically, thus only having to dial the one number.
One benefit the PC cards offer is a toll free access number. This is a benefit, particularly in Canada, where dialing a number outside your local area can result in roaming charges, in addition to possibly long distance charges.