You are living in country X, but you want to have a telephone number in country Y, where you can get called at. Some combinations of providers and governments won't allow it, but it's worth having a look at it. Some providers will charge you quite some Dollars, Euros, or whatever. Find out!
Here are some links:
All this is possible at rather low prices nowadays through
Internet telephony aka
VoIP esp.
SIP. Of course SIP is not the only VoIP protocol available on the Internet, there is also
XMPP aka Jabber, which is more of a general purpose thing, because it also comprises instant messaging aka IM. XMPP is actively propagated amongst other esp. by Google, so I asssume quite some progress and change in this market. Yes, there are already quite some SIP telephones out there, but actually with a smartphone (Android, iPhone, iTouch) and the XMPP right app, you don't mind the assets of the early adopters, right?
What do I use it for resp. what do I like to use international telelephone numbers for? Well, e.g. calling from Germany to e.g. Brazil or Urugay is awfully cheap nowadays, but calling from Brazil or Urugay to Germany is still expensive. Alright, I can initiate the calling a couple of times each day, but sometimes we like getting called by our beloved ones or business friends, and then it it's simple nice and/or necessary, that it's cheap to call overseas from within Brazil at a Brazilian telephone number. Got it?
