backpacking with my mobile...?

Mr_Sondhi

Hi everyone,

I'm off backpacking at the end of this month and would like to take my mobile with me, but as i will be backpacking my income will not allow me to afford my current £19 per month contract + calls

I am currently on the prehistoric Orange Everyday 50 tarif, i was wandering if anyone knew of a better tarif that i could switch to to allow me to travel in contact but on a budget.

Thanks for your help

Mr Sondhi

Steve_xx

Probably best to get a SIM for the country you're in.

Also bear in mind that if you roam with the phone then you will be charged for receiving calls as well as for making them, and it's an expensive business.

andy88_2

Also think of a callback service to use with local prepaid sim; this will usually make your outgoing calls cheaper.

Which countries?

Mr_Sondhi

Hi again and thanks for the advice so far.

So i'm guessing i'm going to have cancel my Everyday 50 monthly tarif then. and go for a pay as you go tarif from orange and then swap sim cards whilst i'mm out there? i'm not sure how this would affect my phone insurance hmmm...

I'll just be using the phone to receive texts mostly, as i can use relatively free email to contact people.

The countries i'm off to are NZ, Aus, Chile, Brazil, Peru, America, Mexico.

As i'm back packing i'm concerned about theft of the phone, so the insurance part is quite an important issue...

pin

How long are you going for? With orange you can "freeze" your contract for a number of months. Contact them and they will explain. Get a UK pay as you go (so people from the UK can text you on a UK number) and get a multi sim holder so you can put a local sim into the phone as well.

Should mention, as you are going to the US, you need a tri band phone (or a phone that works on 1900 frequency).

allthatmularky

Just a thought (maybe someone can confirm ?) isn't the Orange ED50 tariff much sought after ? One way of making yourself a few quid.

Word of caution - backpacking with a mobile - think a rucksack might be more useful

Mr_Sondhi

rupenshah said:

With orange you can "freeze" your contract for a number of months. Contact them and they will explain.

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I've looked into that after reading your post and apparently, you can only do that for a minimum of 3 months and a maximum of 6 months. I'm off for at least 7 months. Thanks for the infor though.

Mr_Sondhi

allthatmalarky said:

Word of caution - backpacking with a mobile - think a rucksack might be more useful

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lol, ok should've seen that one coming, i'm intruiged by what you meant by your first comment though...

pin

I guess you could sell your contract, as ED50 is reasonably sought after (don't know how much you will be able to sell it for). However selling it means you will probably lose your phone number.

Otherwise freeze it for 6 months and suffer paying the remainder line rental.

Last option, to keep you number, port out to a "no line rental tariff" like Virgin or CPW fresh (reason I say a no line rental tariff as opposed to a pay as you go tariff is because roaming agreements and roaming rates on payg tariffs are fairly poor and expensive compared to contract tariffs)

cebolla

If your travelling in mexico you pay $2.50pm (about 12ppm) to recieve international calls on a telcel chip, but if you leave your state then this goes up to $15.5pm (about 70ppm) to recieve international calls and some to recieve interstate calls so you really need a chip for each state. The cost to recieve can be reduced as if you shop around you can buy a chip with $300 credit for $150 (£7) meaning you could recieve about 120 mins international calls in the home state for this amount. If the caller in england uses the mse call checker then they should be able to call you with an 0844 number (off peak between you and the caller it will be about 10ppm).

I'd swallow the £15 for the extra month on the ED50 if it works for you now as you may lose out when you get back.

ps $ are pesos