So far our best investment was the portable web-cam and the Skype account (free). It's wonderful being able to talk with him in the evenings and actually see his face. Given the readily available access to high speed internet connections at school (including WiFi) ... I can have a face-to-face conversation with him whether he's in his dorm room, in the student union, etc., plus it's free. Skype may elect to charge for calls to land-lines later in 2007, but I don't expect it to be very much since their current charges for calling international land-lines is 2.9 cents/minute. Computer-to-computer calls, i.e., pure IP-to-IP calls will remain free.
The other benefit to the Skype connection: I was beating on him for using his cell phone during peak hours to talk with his girlfriend and driving up our monthly plan costs, but got him convinced to just plug in the little portable headset into his laptop and call her using Skype instead ... at least for now until year end, Skype calls to land-lines or cell phones in the U.S. and Canada are free.