iPhone with modest data roaming - best plan ?

aramo

Requirements. iPhone 4S and a monthly plan that has approx 300 minutes, 300 (uk) texts, 500MB UK data - ex-europe data roaming 50KB per day 15 days a month OR 100 (ex-europe) txts

My gf is airline crew (long haul) and she has an aging iPhone 3G on a legacy O2 contract which allows her to txt while abroad out of her txt allowance this alone is worth about £35/mth to her versus standard txting rates. If she upgrades her phone with o2 they will issue a new contact which will not cover txting while abroad but I noticed that o2 do have a world wide data roaming plan with per KB billing (if I'm reading spec correctly) so if she uses an internet service to send txts it could work out pretty cheap. It's essential that billing is per KB as she will send a few txts a day from various remote countries over the course of a month so anything like a minimum of 1MB per country (£6) would prove costly over the month. I calculate 5KB should cover a single txt message so allowing for 100 per month the total cost should come to £3. I use a service via my nokia E5 to send txt messages via an internet connection so I know how that part works.
My question is does anyone have experience of being billed for txting over internet while roaming (or just using a low bandwidth service) - especially with o2 and are there any hidden traps - something I might have overlooked.
IF anyone has a better way I'd love to hear of that too.

gjchester

Not directly relelvent but a few of the free internet to SMS gateways closed recently, that may have a bearing on this.

Also it may be more than just the few KB if the phones left to it's own devices as it will do updated when needed for email facebook and so on.

It's not the cheapest way but if her plan is the best for her, it may be cheaper long term to buy a Iphone 4S sim free and retain the plan, or buy a bungle of PAYG sims and use an IP bases message service like WhatsUpp

neil40

Just buy a new phone outright and keep her old plan running to keep the free texts.

aramo

gjchester wrote: »

Not directly relelvent but a few of the free internet to SMS gateways closed recently, that may have a bearing on this.

Also it may be more than just the few KB if the phones left to it's own devices as it will do updated when needed for email facebook and so on.

It's not the cheapest way but if her plan is the best for her, it may be cheaper long term to buy a Iphone 4S sim free and retain the plan, or buy a bungle of PAYG sims and use an IP bases message service like WhatsUpp

Thanks for suggestions, the sms gateway is not a freebie so no worries there I am know about keeping an eagle eye on broadband activity while roaming there are firewall solutions to this issue. I've not come across WhatsUpp so I will check that out.

She really likes her (new) phones so I'd like to make it happen but paying £499 for the phone and then £37 p/m for very modest requirements is a big ask.

pull62

The messaging service btw is "WhatsApp" not whatsupp.

gjchester

aramo wrote: »

I've not come across WhatsUpp so I will check that out.

She really likes her (new) phones so I'd like to make it happen but paying £499 for the phone and then £37 p/m for very modest requirements is a big ask.

Sorry WhatsApp not Upp - http://www.whatsapp.com/

Long and short is everyone charges for data and likes to do it in bundles or a minimum size. You need to work out what the data charges at a minimum would be and if it's better and worse than what you have.

It is a lot if your not using it all, but it may be cheaper to do that than get an upgrade and lose some of the bits of the contract you like, EU text messages are 10p, so 100 a month is a tenner. Vodafone charge £2 for up to 25MB in europe, it only takes 5 days of that (even if it's jsut 1 message) to be in the same place as using texts.

aramo

gjchester wrote: »

Sorry WhatsApp not Upp - http://www.whatsapp.com/

Long and short is everyone charges for data and likes to do it in bundles or a minimum size. You need to work out what the data charges at a minimum would be and if it's better and worse than what you have.

WhatsUpp looks interesting but I strongly suspect it's bandwidth requirements are much higher than the simple sms-via-internet app I use, the one with the estimated 5kB per sms [actually it's 1kB/sms on my nokia but I am allowing the iphone app some headroom]. Like I said in the 1st post, if I am reading the o2 spec correctly o2 charge 'by the kB' at £6/MB for world wide roaming but I could easily be missing something here in fact o2 shop staff tell me the minimum charge is for 1MB per country per month but I cannot find that mentioned anywhere online.

I suspect I will only learn the full facts if I subscribe to the new o2 plan and suck and see as the saying goes. Still looking at alternatives.

aramo

neil40 wrote: »

Just buy a new phone outright and keep her old plan running to keep the free texts.

Well I could do that but it's not very MSE-esque

By my calculations if I do as you suggest I will spend at least 37*24+499 = 1387 over the next two years whereas IF I am interpreting the o2 contract correctly and do as I suggested I will spend at least (37+3)*24 = 960. Overall a difference of £427 and something I would sneeze at