Inmate phone systems were built long, long time ago but they are still widely used in many prisons and other institutions. What is interesting about them that the usage of such telephone systems has not decreased yet, even after the appearance of the mobile phones!

Anyway, if you are little bit younger than 30 years old, you might not be quite sure what inmate phone systems are since they are not being discussed widely nowadays. If you require the shortest possible explanation and description of such a phone system, here it comes: that is a way for connecting all of the telephones inside a large building to one another. Of course, you should know that the inmate systems are used for connecting with third parties outside an institution also.

You probably can see that it looks pretty much like the “ordinary” telephone system- just on a smaller scale. Anyway, you should not be surprised that the inmate telephone calling cards are used as a main way for using the system. But there are several kinds of such calling cards and each of them has got different characteristics. Here you will be given all of them so that you can see which inmate telephone calling card is the best solution for you.

The first calling card, which is going to be discussed, is the prepaid one. The prepaid inmate telephone calling cards are basically the most spread and used way of making a call inside a jail. What prisoners do is paying for the card in advance, and once they get the card, it gives them allowance to use the phone for a particular amount of time or said in another way- they have a limit. Once the limit is reached, the prisoner will need to get a new prepaid calling card, which also costs money, of course.

Another popular type of inmate telephone calling cards are the so called debit calling cards. Well, they are a bit less used than the prepaid cards, especially in jails. Basically, the only difference between a prepaid and debit calling card is that the second one required the payment to be made immediately after the call, not before that.

However, you may have thought they are only two kinds of inmate calling cards but there is just one more- these are the standard cards. Yes, they are really called “standard” and there is no doubt that they got the best possible name since there is really nothing special or surprising about them. Anyway, for any reasons this kind of calling cards are not that much used in prisons or institutions like that.

So, you already know that there are many types of inmate calling cards available- some of them are cheaper, and others- more expensive. Unfortunately, as they are used mainly in jails, prisoners do not have the right to choose which sort of cards to purchase. The reason is that the prison has just one of these three sorts of calling cards, which is allowed for usage and purchase. That is pretty logical since an inmate telephone system could never use all kinds of calling phone cards.

Basically, that was most of the stuff which you might have to know about the inmate phone calling cards. Just do not forget that all of them are different and have advantages and drawbacks which you’d better be informed about.

If your looking to learn more information about the topic of inmate calls including inmate collect calls be sure to check out our web site on inmate phone service.

Tags: cell phones, cellular, cellular phones, Communications, corrections, crime, jail, phones, prisons, telecommunications, telephone, Telephone Systems