One option is to buy an unlogked GSM phone and a Passport sim. Go to www.telestial.com There is a ton of information there.

With the Passport SIM outgoing calls are .49 and incoming calls are free. Of course, nothing is ever free. If calling from the US, the Passport SIM is free incoming to the Passport holder, but since the SIM is a UK based cell number, it is charged to the caller form the US. Even using Skype, the cost to me using my Skype account was ~ 25 cents/min.