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

cpjackso wrote:

The cheapest I've been able to work out for roaming in most countries is to use the sim4travel, or similar Lichtenstein-based SIM, and then rather than use the credit use https://www.callbackworld.com in America to originate the calls;

https://www.callbackworld.com allows you to register an account with them, subscription free, and they charge the calls to your credit card on a monthly basis.

Indeed, and other global SIMs as well as single-country ones can be used in a similar manner, eg Enlinea with 09 mobile (10c to landlines), Voipfone with IoM numbers, but the cheapest possibility allows calls for 3 pence a minute at the moment.

Going to France for two weeks and have to take the cell phone.

More confused after reading all this info, can anyone suggest a simple solution? I will most likely use the phone every day. I think the network I am with is BT, at least thats what it says on the screen. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Anyone have any idea why New Zealand isn't included in most of these providers 'free to receive' countries?!?
I'd rather get a global SIM as going backpacking via a dozen different countries - don't expect to get free calls in all, but though I would hit problems with Malaysia or Chile; not NZ!!

Also, does anyone know what geoSIM (http://www.globalsimcard.co.uk) charge to send / receive texts as I can't find it on their site?!

megsykins wrote:

Anyone have any idea why New Zealand isn't included in most of these providers 'free to receive' countries?!?
I'd rather get a global SIM as going backpacking via a dozen different countries - don't expect to get free calls in all, but though I would hit problems with Malaysia or Chile; not NZ!!

Also, does anyone know what geoSIM (http://www.globalsimcard.co.uk) charge to send / receive texts as I can't find it on their site?!

About NZ: these SIMs do not cover everywhere, and NZ seems to be missing from the roaming agreements of some of the parent networks used by the SIMs, so it is worth checking variations of coverage, which you seem to have done. But the IoM ones and 09 mobile (Iceland) appear to have. You might also consider a Vodafone UK SIM, registered for Passport, as a back-up in countries with a Vodafone affiliated network, like NZ and much of Europe; calls at 5p a minute off-peak plus a 75p connect fee.

labp04 wrote:

Next Saturday we're due to leave for our version of a grand tour and would really like to take our mobile through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Italy and Greece between start and December. As you've guessed we're very confused about how best to do this and this is compounded by a hope to use the mobile as a modem to keep up with emails and banking. Any thoughts will be very welcome about the most efficient and cheapest way of doing this.

If you are on Vodafone, register for their Passport scheme, as this would apply on the Vodafone networks in all of those except Luxembourg and Austria (in Belgium Proximus; France SFR).

edit - Vodafone extended the coverage of Passport to all EU countries

If you are on O2, register for MyEurope which means calls at 35p a minute.

For that length of time, it is worth looking into foreign SIMs as well, and with that many countries I'd suggest one of the global roaming ones that Martin refers to, used in an unlocked phone. Perhaps one of the Isle of Man ones, which means people at home can call you using cheap calls providers, or maybe from inclusive minutes on some UK mobile networks (needs checking)

For data use, this can cost 0.3 or 0.5 pence per kB on UK SIMs, so it would be well to largely avoid this. Global SIMs have no data facilities as far as I'm aware. The Wind SIM from Italy used to have very good roaming data tariffs, but no longer. It might be worth looking at Swisscom which has a contract of a couple of francs a month then data is a bit cheaper than those UK rates, but I don't enough about it yet