Setting up cost-effective communications between the U.S. and China isn’t simple.

Skype certainly is – you can’t beat free – and I intend to use Skype (on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro) over wifi as much possible. I’m staying in business class hotels, so I should have reliable wifi.

But I also need to be accessible to folks from their phones in the U.S. and to be able to call phones in the U.S. from China. I’ll be using Skype for both of those options too:

• SkypeIn – which lets people call my Skype from their phone via a unique U.S. phone number, $12.05 for three months after a 33% discount for buying SkypeOut
• SkypeOut – which let’s me call phones from Skype, $13.99/month

Together, these will let me talk with people on their phones in the U.S. very cost-effectively. But they still require me to be on Skype.

To bridge to a phone in China, I have a China mobile phone – thanks to a friend who travels there frequently – for which I’ll buy a SIM when I arrive. Rates seem to be in the $20 for 1-2 hours of talk. I’m pairing that with a calling card (yes, cheeziest site ever, but she says they’re for real) at $.032/minute after the caller enters a jillion numbers.

The last element is a separate China mobile that Eisenhower provides that is exclusively for local calls about scheduling and logistics. Yes, that totals three phones.

Not addressed yet in this solution is text. I bought $5 credit on Skype for SMS, but messages cost $.09 each! I think that I’ll get text on my China mobile, but I won’t know until I’m there.

The goal of all of this was to have a call from the U.S. to my U.S. mobile reach me in China cost-effectively. It doesn’t seem that that’s possible today. But my Rube Goldberg solution should get me most of the way there. I just have to remember to forward my iPhone and put it in Airplane mode (with wifi on) for the duration of my trip when I board the flight on Saturday.

I’d love to hear if anyone has a better solution than all of this complexity…