HELP:calling a UK mobile which is in the USA

janettemorrison

Can anyone help please.

My husband in the US at the moment and has his UK mobile with him (O2 pay as you go).

Does anyone know how much it will cost for me to call him from my mobile (T-Mobile pay monthly with lots of free minutes).

I have tried to find the costs myself but can't seem to find an answer to this question.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Janette

-1-

You will pay your normal rate. Not sure if it's included in your minutes or not, it will either be included or a standard rate outside your minutes.

He will pay to receive the call though, it depends which network over their he is roaming on how much it will cost for him.

His phone will need to be a tri-band phone to work in the USA.

I think it's between 99p and £1.50 per minute for him to receive a call.

http://www.o2.co.uk/international/travellingabroad/paygoabroad/paygoprices

janettemorrison

Thank you for your help.

Best thing to do I think is always travel with the hubby!

redux

As above, your costs are the same wherever the other phone is, but he will incur roaming fees of [sit down] over £1 a minute to make or receive calls. Incoming text messages will not cost him though, so you can still do that

So he should look into getting a US SIM card, or can you arrange to call him on a landline where he's staying?

Here is info on the main and virtual networks there
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

His phone might need unlocking - is it a tri- or quad-band phone by the way, as they have different frequency bands? - or there are pretty cheap ones available in the supermarkets.

Once he has a foreign SIM, you can use 07744 callthrough numbers from your T-mobile inclusive minutes, as discussed in Martin's thread below. Note - don't press the Send key after the second number as this starts a second call - it's useful to save the numbers together with a pause character between.

There are a couple of recent comments that these have some capacity issues at the moment though, so another option is an add-on bundle that T-mobile have, of 50 minutes to USA for £2, so 4 pence a minute.

Or call from your landline - see the MSE Callcheckker

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1105983163,80958,

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/personal/pages.do/our-services/costs-from-the-uk/bundles

nb. I used to think these bundles were only on payg, but it looks like contracts qualify as well

janettemorrison

redux wrote:

There are a couple of recent comments that these have some capacity issues at the moment though, so another option is an add-on bundle that T-mobile have, of 50 minutes to USA for £2, so 4 pence a minute.

If I use this option does it mean that he won't be charged for the call as well?

Seems like the way to go if he doesn't.

Regards

-1-

He will still be charged.

The above option just lets you call him for cheaper if your free minutes don't cover the call.

janettemorrison

And if he buys a US sim card - will he still be charged?

All seems a bit unfair :-(

-1-

If he buys a US sim then it would be as normal, (as if you we're phoning a US landline).

So you would pick up the charges, that is when the £2 "add on" pack would come in ,so you can call him for upto 50 minutes for only £2.

redux

janettemorrison wrote:

And if he buys a US sim card - will he still be charged?

All seems a bit unfair :-(

It does a bit, and sorry I forgot to include this to start with. It's because they charge the extra cost of mobile phones differently, to the receiver rather than the caller.

It means you can call from here to a US mobile for the same as a landline there, whereas here it's more to reach a UK mobile than landline

The incoming charge on the US SIM is in the range of 10 to 20 cents, so a lot cheaper than O2's over a £1, so it means prefer it if you can call him on a landline

koru

Consider suggesting that he buys a PAYG phone from Walmart.

I picked up a Net 10 phone which cost less than £25 and included call credits that would pay for 5 hours of calls to other US phones or incoming calls or more than 3 hours of calls to UK landlines (but not mobiles). That's 15 cents per minute for calls to the UK (about 8 pence). You can buy top up cards at the same rate. AFAIK, if you call him he would pay 10 cents a minute and you would pay 2p a minute on call181815 or 0.5p from a landline.

You can buy cheaper phones (as little as £8), but you get only a few minutes call credits and calls are 25 cents a minute within the US and either you can't call overseas or it costs more to call the UK.

I plan to sell mine on eBay, so it gets recycled and I might make a few quid.

janettemorrison

Thank you everyone for your help, I appreciate it.

I was trawling through all the literature on the different websites when I had a brain wave to ask the same question in the forum. Nice and easy and got the answers I needed.

Janette