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Seriously? This is a device not unlike the Nokia 108 RM-945, both of which seem designed to suck payments at the teets of the GSM-provider/subsidizer. You can transfer your data using SD-cards or GSM; that's it. Neither of which offer wifi. If you're not including wifi on the device, who is paying for/subsidizing the 'internet', really? And how?

Does anyone remember WAP? This is like Facebook (etc.) subsidized WAP for developing nations, in modern times. Thank you %$#@! rich bastard Zuck & Co. This not exactly open-access internet for developing nations. Do not be fooled. Do not be their tool.

This is also a form of 'bundling', and is not to be confused with a voip-friendly phone, (except for those hackers choosing to abuse this subsidized cost structure using a call-back sytem using lower rates in the EU-type GSM cost structures [...US is subscriber+caller-based. Not a strictly caller-based costing structure])

This is classic Nokia evolution and engineering, now owned by Microsoft and being transitioned for the developing world using an advertising-based payment structure.

Happy 2015+.

If it is over wifi, you can use Voip providers. I use http://www.poivy.com/en/index.... and can call free for 90 days and then 2 cents per minute. SMS is also pretty cheap. On http://www.backsla.sh/betamax you will see a lot other providers. Be aware that the price of 0 often means for a limited time when you did a top-up of e.g. 10 EUR.

When I have network, I just use that to call/SMS with http://www.poivy.com/mobile_vo...

When I don't have network and I want tro call abroad, I just dial into a local number and I call for a local call+2 cents from Belgium to e.g. Spain. US would be 1.5 cents per minute.

I have an unlocked android phone (acer) with a pre-paid card. I have no idea if (and how) my network provider would block Network access to certain sites. I am sure that would be illegal in Europe. (IF you take this as legal advice, you are a dunce.)

So that could reduce your phone and SMS costs. Especially if you want to call a lot from Europe to the US and from the US to Europe.

You are not alone. I am the same and many of my friends are the same as well. We send each other an SMS and then we meet in person for drink or dinner.
When I call my parents, I use VOIP, even though they do not have a PC. Using one of thes is cheaper when calling international: http://www.backsla.sh/betamax (And I need to do that if I want to call them)

I use http://www.poivy.com/en/index.html to make my international calls.
It is just one of the Betamax VoIP providers. A list can be found here:
http://www.backsla.sh/betamax

What I do is call a fix number, which asks for the line I want to call. Or when I have an Internet connection, I use the Android app.

When I do a payment, I get 90 days free calling. After that it is still extremely cheap. Now it is 2 cents per minute for Spain.

www.12voip.com

Been using them well over 1 year, they are a betamax company: http://backsla.sh/betamax

When I buy in 10 euro amounts, I get 10 free days. Seems I only my use credit to call Dutch mobile phones at $.06 per minute. The free days cover pretty much cover all my landline calls in 'most modern VOIP countires' such as NL, US, UK, etc. Check out the rates yourself. I don't limit how much I call or for how long and my costs are like a few euros over several months, not tens of dollars.

Bought a Polycom IP-650 phone, but the codecs also work great using my Nokia phones. www.voipcheap.com is #2 in my book.

People flinch at the betamax voip service, but no one seems to bother to sort out the correct asterisk settings, although the SIP termination configuration is fairly well documented on all the betamax sites. My quality is perfect, and my callers/callees agree.

I call over VoIP. I call a fixed number that then will call the international number. Some price comparison right here: http://www.backsla.sh/betamax Prices are lowest available, so it could be that you need to pay a bit more after a while.

The one I took was 90 days free and now I pay 1.5 euro cents per minute.

Downside is that calling the number takes a bit longer. First the local number, then a pause (needed to look in my phones manual to know what it was) then the remote number, then a message telling nme the price and only then the phone starts ringing at the other side.
Sometimes quality is poor (1 in 10 times or so) or I get disconnected, but as these are private calls and not business ones, I gladly do a redial and pay about 10% of what I would normally pay.

I am living in Europe, so YMMV. Plenty people I know who have two numbers. Especially those who are commuting in two countries.

I personally use a VoIP service to call international. http://www.backsla.sh/betamax to find out which one might be interested for you.

I just add the number I need to call in front of the 'real' phonenumber and I can call anywhere. Not only from a PC.

... Thanks to my choice (VoIP + WiFi on my "smart" linux enabled (maemo) hand set) my total cost of ownership (TCO) is less than $100 per year. ... $24 per year for SkhypeIn (with SkhypePro) + $3.00 per month for unlimited calling...

Huh, if all you need is calling while next to a WiFi hotspot, "less than $100/y" remains way overpriced IMHO.
I use VoIP from my cellphone for maybe $10 to $20/y with SIPdroid + IPkall DID + JustVoip (or others) + optional: Asterisk, SIPBroker and E164. But all this is mostly irrelevant as my reason for having a cell is to call from places other than home or work = often without WiFi.

Back on topic: VMware stuff is IMO like that VoIP/WiFi stuff: sure cool, appealing to geeks. Good for PR / publicity. But otherwise limited practical usefulness, esp for non-techies...

Actually you can do cheaper for Australia - check: http://niftylist.co.uk/calls/to/australia/landline/ These are dial-through services - start at half a pence per minute. You can also dial landlines "free" using SIP services from a company called betamax. Check this site for a comparison: http://www.backsla.sh/betamax Betamax have a load of different SIP services - and they all come with a free PC based client similar to Skype or with some of them you can use a standard ATA device with a real phone connected. You get a number of 'freedays' which you can call several destinations for free, and after that you generally pay 1 eurocent per minute.

But it does not completely work like that. There is competition in the telecom provider market. The caller can choose another provider that charges less for calls to a mobile.

But the problem is that there is an absolute floor to the cost of calls to a mobile. That is the termination rate they are able to get from the called party's company. Outside of special promotions, no company will ever charge you less than that amount for a call, because they will be losing money every minute you talk.

And in caller-pays systems, there is no inventive for operators to lower the termination rate. Only regulators can bring it town (sometimes mobile operators get together and negotiate lower rates, in a benevolent form of price fixing, but this is rare).

So no mobile company, no matter how discount-minded, can provide you with calls that approach the marginal cost of operating the service, which is what should happen in a truly competitive environment.

And again, the evidence speaks for itself - Look at how much it costs to land a call on a mobile in a rich, expensive country with called-party-pays (e.g., US, Singapore, Hong Kong) vs in a rich, expensive country with caller-pays (e.g., UK or Australia): some cheap retail voip termination costs.

The EU is currently having fits trying to iron some of the grotesque profit-taking out of the mobile market there, but they really have only two choices: (1) mandate called-party-pays, or (2) explicitly set price caps at the point where they wish competition would bring them. One of these choices allows the market to do its work, the other is the kind of state control that stifles innovation and dramatically slows market response to changed conditions. It will be interesting to see which way they go. Personally, I suspect they'll just impose price caps for intra-EU roaming and then declare victory and call it a day, leaving the market fundamentally distorted.

Or he can get a mobile himself, preferably at the same mobile provider, and pay a lot less for calls to that number.

This is vendor lock-in, which is specifically anti-competitive.

making a lot of Skypeout calls to mobile phones

Why are you doing that? There are much cheaper ways to call mobiles.

One of the easier ways is to pick a service from Betamax (link is to a 3rd-party price-comparison grid that will help you pick the Betamax service with the best rates to your destinations).

• They operate VoIP services under a dozen or so brand names and each brand has different rates. For an up-to-date comparison, see: http://backsla.sh/betamax
• They keep changing rates and the list of free countries, but the core countries tend to remain the same.
• To get free VoIP calls, you must top up 10 euros (+GST) every three or four months (depending on which of their brands you are using). Free calls are free calls - those 10 euros you can use for calling other, non-free, destinations. Also, credit does not expire so you can keep topping up until you finally have a use for all that credit (or the company folds ;).
• There is a limit on the amount of free calls - 300 minutes in a floating 7 day window, though they do not seem to be very exact about this. Sometimes, they screw up and charge for a supposedly free call (at a still impressive 1 cent a minute). But far more often than that, I end up calling for way over 300 minutes per week and still get charged nothing.
• They also offer a call-back service where you type in your phone number and the one you want to call. Both phones then ring and a connection is established between them. If both phones would have normally been free to call, this type of call is free as well. There is only a 5 cent or so set-up charge. A minor annoyance is that this gets charged even if the line on the other side is busy or nobody picks up.
  
  This service is actually really handy at work, where SIP may not work due to firewall restrictions. You can still call out by having your office phone be called back.
• Finally, all calls get disconnected after one hour. My guess would be this is because with each free call you make, they are actually losing some money and they do not want to keep paying when people forget to properly hang up their phones...