Using Your Mobile When Abroad: Roam For Less Article Discussion Area

Former_MSE_Archna · 21 July 2006 at 5:43PM

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Using Your Mobile When Abroad: Roam For Less Article

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p1an0player · 23 July 2006 at 4:10AM

"If your voicemail’s called when you’re overseas, whether the phone’s on or off, even if no message is left, most networks charge as if you’d received a call. This can be up to £1/min"

What! so if my phone's off when I'm abroad, someone phones it and doesn't leave a message, I have to pay?! Scandalous.

Can we name and shame the networks that do this and how much they charge exactly?!

What if someone calls my voicemail and spends about 5 minutes recording, reviewing and re-recording a message to me before deciding to erase it completely and not leave a message?

redux · 23 July 2006 at 12:35PM

I'm glad to see the original article updated with more of the global SIMs, but can I add a bit more? Martin's list of global SIMs includes/omits some agents and some of the original suppliers, eg includes Oneroam but omits Travelsim. Also, there are some more global roaming SIMs than that, also 09 Mobile (Iceland number) and Yackie (pretty new, based on an Orange Israel SIM, but with a forwarding landline number from a choice of countries - only just starting up though so not much feedback yet).

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html

The Isle of Man SIMs have a wider range of tariffs, set at the discretion of the reseller, so it is well worth a bit of exploring. Mine was from 0044, on a very good tariff but they then increased tariffs for later supplied ones, and have now switched supply from CallKey to Callblue, also IoM based but with fewer countries with free incoming calls. There are many more resellers than listed, and the cheapest one that I know at the moment is Geodesa.

An Isle of Man mobile number is on a separate network from UK ones, so the statements from many suppliers that you get a UK number can be rather misleading. Some providers count it as such and some do not - most cheap calls providers do though, so using a 18185 account from a BT landline means reaching it for 5p weekdays, 2p weekends. Whereas a Liechtenstein mobile costs more, using an 0871 number (10p from landlines), and does not seem to be availablle via the 07744 numbers that can be used to reach other foreign mobiles from some UK networks' inclusive minutes.

Using local SIMs, international tariffs to call home can be good (7p/min), or pretty bad (60p), so it is worth also looking into callback and calling card possibilities. Callback tariffs are fairly similar to the cost of cheap calls providers calling the SIM from here, ie around 10p to 20p per minute for European ones.

May I disagree a bit with what Martin says about USA. T-mobile USA and Cingular SIMs are said to be quite common on eBay (even at a discount), and some virtual operators will ship direct - I think someone mentioned BeyondWireless recently on another forum. Tariffs on USA SIMs are about 10c to 20c per minute, and a calling card would add another 2c. Note that incoming calls are chargeable as well, but to call to the number is same price as a landline.

global SIMs
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html

single-country SIMs
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/operators.html
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml

DontDoDebtKids · 26 July 2006 at 3:16PM

Hi all,

Here's a tip from me:

I have a Blackberry 8700g on T-Mobile's Instant E-mail only plan - £17 a month for 50Mb of data per month. It is quite hard to find on their site as they hide it away! They obviously want people to sign up for a voice tariff too. I never exceed this a month (unless abroad) as I don't use it as a phone, only for e-mail.

It turns out that T-Mobile or Blackberry, exactly who I'm not quite sure, have set the Blackberry data roaming costs at a fixed rate worldwide. This means that you pay just 0.37p (off the top of my head) per Kb, which works out to be very cheap as you don't send much in the way of Kb using a Blackberry.

End result - when I went skiing earlier this year I took it with me and the extra data charge for the week (which I expected to be enormous!) was...52pence. For a week's e-mailing friends and family. Not holding back. I was amazed.

That's cheaper than sending a text message abroad on my mobile.

Guess what I use when I go abroad these days?

dellwear · 26 July 2006 at 4:08PM

I've just read Martins article and it says that the cheapest UK network to roam with in the states is TMobile:

"These techniques struggle in the US as few Sim providers are able to strike deals with American networks and it’s difficult to buy a local Sim there without a residential address.

However T-Mobile* does have a US infra-structure making one option to pick up a cheap UK PAYG T-mobile Sim card and use it to make calls in the States. Receiving and making a 10 min call costs £11 compared to £24 with 02."

Well I'm not sure how Martin worked this example out (although I'd be interested so I can compare it) but I believe that EasyMobile beat TMobile.

Roaming for the US is charged at:

90p for calls back to the UK
60p for recieveing calls in the US
40p for SMS back to the UK or within the US
50p for SMS to other countries

To use Martins example a 10 min call to the UK would cost £9.00 - £2.00 cheaper then TMobile.

Saying that Martins Example says calls to AND from the UK so it could be even cheaper. It all depends on what combination of minutes (making and recieveing) Martin used to create the example as their recieveing charge is even less.

In addition Easymobile are offering a sim for £1 with £1 credit on it as well as 1500 text messages!

I did Email the team (hope it's cooler in the office now guys) but haven't received a reply yet so I thought I'd mention it in the forum too.

ard123en · 27 July 2006 at 1:57AM

ive just got back for a 2 week trip to germany used oneroam sim while there

just left a voice mail on my uk sim and tuned it of BEFORE leaving the uk

worked good for me if was urgent people rang me on oneroam number

the number is estonian so used callchecker and get it under 10p to make calls from the uk for family

even had a use for it in the uk my the other day my virgin sim could not get a signal but been able to pick providers ment the oneroam found orange and could allow me to make that urgent call

off the italy and south africa this year so will more than pay for itself

im more than happy with it

ard123en

TonyBagnall · 27 July 2006 at 2:16PM

interesting article, but no mention of texting. Whats the cheapest way to SMS from other countries? I tend to text more than call, at it always annoys me when I get back and see all the 25p texts charged, esp when I never use the messages I'm entitled to in my package anyway. Could see anything on the global sims website I looked at about texting either.

dalore · 27 July 2006 at 2:52PM

Yes I disagree about what Martin says about the USA, I've been there several times and when I was there I had no trouble buying a prepaid cingular gsm sim. Just walk into any Cingular shop there are tonnes and they should help you out. Cingular prepaid had the added benefit of free calls between other Cingular customers, so if you go as a group, you should be able to call each other as much as you when your out and about. But one thing about mobiles in the USA is that you also pay to recieve calls so watch out for that one.

kawauso · 27 July 2006 at 3:47PM

After I read the article I spent a bit of time on the various websites mentioned. My father was interested in such a card as he constantly travels between several European countries. I eventually settled on the MaxSIM EnglandCalling card for several reasons: firstly it is among the better ones in terms of free coverage worldwide for the destinations I care about. Secondly there is only a requirement of activity every 9 months (that information was quite hard to find on other sites). SMS by the way is one global rate of 20p for sending, receiving is free as with all others, which is not bad. Thirdly and best of all there are no call setup charges and there is per second billing. This really sets the card apart and makes the higher purchase price seem worthwhile. Lots of other cards charge 20p or more in setup and then bill by the minute. The usual scenario as I envisage it is that you trigger a call to the people back home who then call you back using cheap call providers. That trigger call should only cost a few p but with other services can easily cost 60p or more, making the initial investment worthwhile.
Let's see whether it all really works out this way.

MSE_Martin · 27 July 2006 at 4:28PM

Yes I disagree about what Martin says about the USA, I've been there several times and when I was there I had no trouble buying a prepaid cingular gsm sim. Just walk into any Cingular shop there are tonnes and they should help you out. Cingular prepaid had the added benefit of free calls between other Cingular customers, so if you go as a group, you should be able to call each other as much as you when your out and about. But one thing about mobiles in the USA is that you also pay to recieve calls so watch out for that one.

Sometimes its interesting that people's experience differs to the official line given when researching such a piece. I am going to make a note in the article about this - thanks for the feedback from you and others

martin

dellwear · 27 July 2006 at 5:14PM

Martin, what mix of dialed and recieved calls did you use for your US example?

I'm just surprised that Easy are the cheapest!

Using Your Mobile When Abroad: Roam For Less Article Discussion Area

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