You can get a SIM card at the Post office.
Cost for phone calls to Portugal is 0.03/min to landlines and 0.25/min to mobile phones.
1. I choose the cheapest contract that support free calls to landlines (from Switzerland to Switzerland)
2. I bought credit on Easyvoip.com and use an app called "mobilevoip" that calls a swiss landline (for free) and then forwards me (by using the Easyvoip credit) to (in my case) Dutch landline for as little as 0.4 dollar-cents per minute!
In case you use your own land-line or a mobile phone that does not support apps, you can call directly to a so called "local-access" number and enter the portuguese number via the keypad (or save this whole process as a single number behind a contact)
With this construction, I can call with my mobile phone from any place where I have network for 0.4 dollar-cents per minute (because I call for free to the swiss land-lines and pay 0.4 cents to easyvoip). At the beginning of the call I get charged immediately 4 dollar-cents, even if the other side is not answering, I believe. Although this seems high compared to the rate per minute, it is still very cheap!
To find which voip-provider is the cheapest, you can have a look at "www.lowcaller.com".
Skype could be an option but Yallo is definetily cheaper and since I have to call my mother in Portugal and she doesn't really work with the computer, this seems to be the best option. And calling the landline is not a problem.
I will try the voip calls as well, although Yallo seems to be the quickest choice.
I will use cablecom as an internet provider at home. No TV or telephone for now, so calling from landline is not an option right now.
Cheers
Good luck!
Our daughter works and lives in Haiti. She and I SKYPE daily and she even SKYPES with her 90 year old Swiss grandparents once a week. Granted, someone else turns on the computer for them, but they anticipate this "visit" with big pleasure.
It is the cutest image to see the grandparents leaning over the computer screen to speak to their granddaughter! If this weren't an open forum, I would post a photo!
( Boa Sorte! Personalamente, eu tenho saudades de Portugal!:-)
While not as straightforward pricing as the likes of Skype (the paid-for calls to landlines in Skype, Skype to Skype is free of course), VoIPStunt pricing can be very cheap depending on your usage to call landlines.
You can charge under 15 Eur in the account and receive that (with Luxembourg VAT deducted) in credit, at very cheap rates (like under 0.02 per minute), but the real deal is that during the next 6 months you can call for free as long as you don't overdo it (like call for hours each day - it only happened to me a couple of times in years of usage). And if you do overdo it, all that happens is it starts deducting from the credit at the very cheap rate for that day (next day is reset and starts free again).
When the 6 months are up, you can either use up the remaining credit you have, or charge right away for 6 more "Free" months and pile up more credit. I usually just exhaust the credit I have before recharging.
The calls aren't really free (hence my quotation marks), but given the description above you can get extremely cheap rates for calls.
This used to be a great comparison table for all their sites, but it seems it hasn been updated in a while. I personally used 12voip for calls to Portugal.
Basically I have a fixed phone to call with those prices
At the Swiss Post: "Das Abo". Without phone, you pay CHF 40 per month for unlimited calls to many countries.
Sunrise: Freedom Flat + "My Country" unlimited for CHF 35 per month would do the same trick for neighbouring countries (including Portugal) as well
It still costs something, but then you are free to call anybody on any phone without worrying about costs or internet connections
Even the limit to 500MB isn't a big problem as once you reach the limit, they propose you to buy more at quite cheap price - when you like...