Going abroad - travel SIMs

fossman

I am going to the Dominican Republic in March and have just checked the roaming call charges. £2.40 a minute to make calls and 80p to receive calls.

Has anyone tried the 0044 (http://www.0044.co.uk/global-sim-card.htm#) Global Sim cards?

redux

There are several different brands of these Isle of Man SIMs, and the resellers have control of the tariffs, so it is usually worth looking at a few, especially outside Europe where the countries with free incoming calls vary between resellers.

But I don't see Dominican Republic on the list of countries covered, so I think you should look at getting a local SIM card from Orange Dominicana.

http://www.orange.com.do/?redirectFrame=planes&pageInter=default.jsp

Local calls and to USA cost about 12 pence a minute, and to Europe are about 16p a minute.

Incoming calls would be free of course, and you coulld look at the MSE Callchecker to find cheap calls providers for people to reach you.

If you'll be making a lot of calls, you might use a callback service for slightly cheaper calls at 8 or 10 pence a minute, or use a callthrough in USA to reach the UK, like Futurephone

fossman

The 0044 Sim charges 57p a minute to receive calls in the Dom Rep.

We will be making one 10 minute call a day (for 14 days) back to the UK.

We were thinking of just paying the normal incoming call rates but 80p a minute is abit steep.

redux

Free incoming is a bit cheaper, all those outgoing calls would cost about £20 on a local SIM card, or £11 using callback with it, and I still can't see this country on the 0044 coverage list

fossman

redux wrote:

Free incoming is a bit cheaper, all those outgoing calls would cost about £20 on a local SIM card, or £11 using callback with it, and I still can't see this country on the 0044 coverage list

I stand corrected, Dominican Republic is not on the countries list for 0044.

Do you know where I can get a local Sim from before I travel as I don't fancy trying to get one while I'm there.

redux

It's pretty unlikely you'd find one here or on eBay. Why not contact them and ask if they can send one? - maybe not but they could probably tell you the nearest shops to the airport

boatman

This is the orange website there.

http://www.orange.com.do/default.jsp?dir=HomePage

Chat forum in DR

http://www.dr1.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1879527

redux

boatman wrote:

This is the orange website there.

still about the same as when I posted it before

look for Orange card, which is the prepaid SIM

fossman

redux wrote:

It's pretty unlikely you'd find one here or on eBay. Why not contact them and ask if they can send one? - maybe not but they could probably tell you the nearest shops to the airport

I've searched the Orange website (quite difficult as I don't speak Spanish)and sent an email to the only address I could find. I did convert the site to English through another website but couldn't find the prepay Sims.

Elsewhere on the internet I've found out the prepay Sims cost $10 USD.

redux

The tariffs are on planes > Orange card > tarifas , or also via libre y sin factura

I can't see the SIM on its own on the site, but RD$100 somewhere else (about 66 pesos to £1, according to xe.com)

I found a phone number on one page , via internacional > welcome to DR - (00) 1-809-859-6555