Mobiles - Cheap international roaming

andy88_2

Errrr, thanks - but actually, I purloined some of it (but found that SIM myself) - although the Emirates stuff just mentioned I did look up for myself (well for a friend).

The roaming charges of Orange UK took a sudden leap upwards only a few months before welcoming the new entrant countries to the EU. What was 52p went up to £1.10, and I think payg is a bit higher still, maybe £1.30 (hence why they said not a big difference)

By coincidence, we're going to Slovakia in July and a friend was there only a couple of weeks ago. There are 2 networks, Orange and Eurotel (rebranding to T-mobile). Their call rates to UK are €0.69 and €0.71, so about 50p per minute. SIMs cost SKK599 and 399 respectively, both with SKK300 starting credit, unless there are special offers. £1 ~= 58 SKCrowns

My source of which countries have free 0800 access from mobiles, allowing you to use a calling card has gone, but because we're going soon I believe I remember about 20p per minute, plus the calling card tariff of course. Using a callback operator with this, the 'outgoing' calls will be about 15p to 22p per minute.

You'd be able to call from UK for about 10p to 15p using cheap calls providers, or if you have a T-mobile or O2 contract mobile use the Simply-Fone service from the inclusive minutes during weekday daytime.

It sounds that in your daughter's case though, the Liechtenstein SIM would be as good or better for longer term reasons given that different countries will be visited during the year, and this will roam with free incoming calls in most European countries - the exceptions are the small ones like Gibraltar, Malta, etc. Outgoing calls 28p a minute, or cheaper with this other callback (but as I say, more complicated, with 2 phones). I think if carrying 2 phones, it would be worth carrying a local one and this one for extra back-up.

http://www.orange.sk/en_private/prima/
http://www.t-mobile.sk/sk
the T-mob site doesn't have much English; button at top right

Yes, sorry I haven't quite put a piece together on that yet. I'll hope to come back to it soon, but this may be my last post on MSE forums.

carmenes82

Andy88- why are you retiring from the forums? I've enjoyed your insights into the roaming 'debate'. Car.

carmenes82

OK, so I phoned BT today to find out how much it costs to call a Liechtenstein mobile number if you are on their BT Together Package. Unbelievably, they cannot tell me since they don't hold the information and suggested I phone the mobile network in Liechtenstein. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?!!!

Could somebody please enlighten me and tell me how much it would cost my parents to phone me on a Liechtensteing mobile?

Thanks,

Car.

andy88_2

I don't BT are sure; someone I know got charged 19p a minute the other day, but it should probably be in the area of 35 to 40p. Steve thought that maybe they hadn't designated the prefix as a mobile, so it would be a good idea not to be any more specific.

Cheap call providers start at 7p per minute and many are 10p per minute, all via 0871 numbers. Unfortunately many of these do not connect reliably and some never that I've found. Telediscount (10p) did work twice recently when I tried. But I don't want to keep spending money on trial calls.

The reason for the unreliability is in the bulk carriers that the 'retail' providers use. The cheapest one has poor quality, and others are significantly more expensive.

This is why Simply-Fone and others have changed provision. S-F spent quite a bit of time on this a while back. In the course of about a day and a half, my phone rang about 6 or 8 times but I never managed to answer it and hear anything. The more expensive providers cannot be funded from the revenue S-F receives on their incoming calls.

The same applies to Pre-dial; they were able to provide this destination, but call charges have increased from some providers.

The dedicated 0871 number I have that connects directly will cost 9p per minute, but again this is unfortunately no longer available. They have changed supplier and further connections will be at 30p per minute. How long they will carry mine I do not know. I made agency enquiries here, and will talk to them shortly, but as many of the connections I envisaged would have been with these Riiing SIMs which I was also looking at, the scope has diminished unless call charges and quality change in future. I count this as a great pity as some UK mobile networks will allow call divert to an 0871 number, and this could have meant effectively diverting the UK mob to the FL one for the 0871 tariff (which is highly varied, it must be said, and would not necessarily be worthwhile).

So cheap call providers call-through numbers from landline for 10p a minute is the simple answer to be going on with; but try the 7p ones a couple of times - you hear about 30 seconds silence with occasional clicks, then either a continuous tone or an announcement (often American accent) that the number cannot be reached.

Now that I'm still here, I'll describe other callback operations in a bit more detail shortly. The other big advantage is that two I've looked at also have a facility to use either a US 800 or UK 0800 number in conjunction with a 6 figure PIN to divert calls to you on your account, which can be set up to any number. Costs for Liechtenstein mobiles are 5.3 or 6.3 pence via US + the cost to US, or 11 or 12.5p via the UK access. And costs for other origins and destinations are also very good - you could set up hotel rooms etc.

I don't seem to be able to post on these subjects without writing half an essay, so apologies, but more soon.

The Liechtenstein SIM is called Riiing. There is plenty of info about how it works tariffs and so on on their website. There are UK agents that sell the SIM and top-ups for a bit higher than the normal tariff ie €15 top-up for £12.80, which makes the quoted 28p per minute inaccurate. The SIM with €5 credit usually goes for €25, but is sold here for £28 or £30.

It is available from agents abroad, with higher postage charges; this is why I am interested in buying several for friends, and considering a website or MSE Referrers Board link, but obviously I would have to discuss this further.

http://www.riiing.com/

carmenes82

Thanks for the info. I persisted with BT, having got a freefone number from saynoto0870, and they eventually gave me a price of 43p/min. I don't know about you, but I think this makes any Liechtenstein based roaming solutions pointless to some degree since all you are doing is passing the cost to the person calling you (if this is your friends and family, they'll soon stop ringing; if it is business contacts then the damage could be even worse) and not actually saving anything overall. And the 43p/min is only from landlines so how about calling from, say, my O2 phone to my mate...that's going to cost 90p/min according to the O2 web site.

As a matter of interest I checked Talktalk's prices and they charge 41p/min.

Are we not going to have a load of unhappy people in a few months time with sky-high bills to Liechtenstein mobiles?!!

Car.

carmenes82

Just found a good new site:

https://www.roamingrates.co.uk

It looks like they haven't added many articles, but the rates are up to date.

Car.

andy88_2

But the same applies to ringing other foreign mobiles. On one occasion of ringing my brother in Germany from BT, I checked afterwards and it looked like about 35p/min or so. You'll have found the same for Spain.

But using other providers as listed in the Callchecker, either account-based ones like 18866 or 1899 or other instant-dial ones will cost about 15p per minute for Spain, Germany and most others. So the comparison should not be against 43p/min, but 10p/min; I realise I may have put those down a little too much. When I first tried 2 or 3 months ago, only one would work. Now, the two times I used Telediscount a few days ago it connected.

monomer

http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=73968

This looks like an interesting proposition... Vodafone using inclusive minutes to offset roaming costs. Looks like it's not coming to the UK for a while though.

andy88_2

I think I heard rumours a while back of something like this coming up for corporate customers. It may be a multiple-IMSI card; that is that it takes on a different local number identity in each country. The hints about local rates etc tend to support it. I'll email a friend with a couple of queries.

monomer

Interesting, andy88!

Just found that there's a full press release with some more details from the Vodafone web site of it here:

http://www.vodafone.com/assets/files/en/vod1198lbprl_pdf.pdf