Another vote in favor of MobalPhone.

>From time to time, Mobal's website offers a limited availability of returned or refurbed Mobalphones FOR FREE! And they'll even pay to ship it to you.

The MobalPhone deal is simple. Once you get the phone, it is yours with no monthly fees. Forever. And you are assigned a permanent phone number which is yours forever. You only pay for the minutes that you use, which are charged to the credit card number that you give them when you buy the phone. Usage generally costs about $1.50 a minute, so unless one is a ratchet-jaw, it is a very affordable alternative. You receive a monthly bill which details any calls that you've made and the charge that they've made to your credit card.

Also, because Mobal is UK-based and operates mainly via Vodaphone's network, while you are in the UK, incoming calls are free.

We've used ours on three trips so far with no problems. In between, we loan our phone to friends who reimburse us (so far) for the calls that they've made.

A sweet deal, IMHO. Jerry in E TN