A friend, madly in love with his girlfriend, would spend an hour a day talking to her--with his smartphone. So it was no surprise that he racked up a bill of Php 50,000 ($1,000!). Which shows that for romance to remain cheap, both parties need landlines.

Most built-in call timers are inadequate, in the sense that they only keep track of the most recent call. If you smartphone or PDA phone supports third-party programs, I'd suggest installing a voice/data usage tracker app. That way, you'll have a better picture of how much you'll have to pay at the end of the month, and plan your use accordingly.

Actually, I've talked about usage trackers before. But I only covered applications meant to keep track of GPRS usage. At the very least, Phone Dashboard looks to be a great option for Windows PPC users because it tracks all sorts of usage.