PAYG - best for texting abroad?

plugster78

I text abroad a lot. I'm on Orange at the moment, getting free UK txts but NOT international, and it's expensive.

Any ideas which networks have the best tariffs for texting abroad?

Thanks.

mobilegossip

o2 payg. 10p a text if you buy Intl Bolt on.

redux

if your phone has Java, investigate https://www.smsbug.com

kai666

redux wrote:

if your phone has Java, investigate https://www.smsbug.com

but you have to connect to #the internet for this, which will increase the overall price as you need to factor in wap/gprs usage, unless you have it included or a bolt on.

redux

kai666 wrote:

but you have to connect to #the internet for this, which will increase the overall price as you need to factor in wap/gprs usage, unless you have it included or a bolt on.

I said investigate it; I didn't say you were compelled to use it, and is unfair to imply I was misleading on cost.

However, it is unlikely to use up vast amounts of wap/gprs resources and the overall cost is still unlikely to exceed 3p.

jelly_bean_6

I'm not sure what you pay to text internationally at the moment, but with a Mobile World sim card (from Carphone Warehouse) which costs £10, international calls cost 15p. International calls are really cheap too - e.g. USA 5p/min and Australia 6p/min.

UK calls are also cheap - flatrate 15p/min to any network at any time, and UK texts 7p. You don't have to worry about minimum top-ups every month either: http://www.mobileworld.co.uk

Oh yeah, they've also got a promotion at the moment whereby you get free calls (up to £100) until Valentines Day. On Feb 14th, they'll credit you back however much you've spent.

kai666

redux wrote:

I said investigate it; I didn't say you were compelled to use it, and is unfair to imply I was misleading on cost.

However, it is unlikely to use up vast amounts of wap/gprs resources and the overall cost is still unlikely to exceed 3p.

I never said you implied that it should be used, i only pointed out that there were additional costs with using this system. I apologise if thats what you thought

redux

I should add that I haven't used smsBug myself yet, and don't know much about wap/gprs, but they give you 5 free messages as a trial, which would help people see how much bandwidth it uses per message.

Nrg_3

I am using smsbug and it really rocks!! The charge is 3eurocent/txt (2pence) +GPRS traffic which is about 1300bytes/text. As orange charges me (im on paymonthly) 3Pounds/megabyte i pay about 0.4pence per text for GPRS traffic which comes to 2+0.4=2.4pence in total. Extremely cheap for me!

Another good thing is that as a sender appears your mobile number, and the receiptent can reply directly. In the other hand, if you want a delivery report is charged another 3eurocent, or you can check online if your message was delivered.

redux

I think I will be using it soon, possibly as a way to trigger callback to the phone. Even at roaming data rates, it should be reasonable - why not use one of those free Virgin SIMs in a spare phone; I think they charge 0.5p/kB even when roaming (needs checking); that's a few hundred for nothing on top of the smsBug charge.