Best way to keep in touch with USA?

d123

onejontwo wrote: »

I get your point, but have you any experience of this whilst being abroad or shall I be the guinea pig and see if it works?

I know of someone who used 2 while both were in the USA, the call centre staff probably got confused thinking you wanted to call a Spanish number.

Sometimes the nuances of the English language are lost at the Three call centres.

redux

Someone making a phone call is never affected by conditions at the destination number, whether voicemail, roaming, pressing buttons for extensions or IVR systems, anything.

This is a universal principle.

I've been in a group of people abroad, and ringing one of the others in the group there is the same rate as ringing home.

Those people need better training.

Frozen_up_north

onejontwo wrote: »

I get your point, but have you any experience of this whilst being abroad or shall I be the guinea pig and see if it works?

Myself and my partner are both on Three's SIM "One Plan" (long may it last ). We were in Spain shortly after it became one of the Feel at Home countries and called/texted each other without any issues and there were no charges added to our monthly bills. Obviously calling a Spanish number would result in the same charges as calling one from the UK. You won't be a guinea pig!

Just dial +44 7xxx to call a UK mobile regardless of where they are when you are in Spain or the USA. Some phones, such as the iPhone, can automatically adjust 07xxx to become +44 7xxx when roaming.

The only downside to roaming with Three in Spain was a limited amount of data bandwidth, the data appears to be routed through a piece of wet string back to the UK resulting in very slow data speeds... That was in Torrevieja in April, it may have improved since, but knowing Three and data in many popular areas, I won't hold my breath.

MikeWhite

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

Just dial +44 7xxx to call a UK mobile regardless of where they are when you are in Spain or the USA. Some phones, such as the iPhone, can automatically adjust 07xxx to become +44 7xxx when roaming.

The only downside to roaming with Three in Spain was a limited amount of data bandwidth, the data appears to be routed through a piece of wet string back to the UK resulting in very slow data speeds...

We had a very similar experience in South West France last year, calls and texts perfect, data often (but not always) slow.

d123

MikeWhite wrote: »

We had a very similar experience in South West France last year, calls and texts perfect, data often (but not always) slow.

Plenty of reports that Three are throttling Feel like Home data in all destinations so that browsing/email will work ok but not streaming or downloading.

Tony5101

worked fine for me in Italy earlier in the year - haven't tried it in any other countries yet though.

Mark_Sanders

You can also call with data connection (3g, 4g, h+ etc.). It doesn't consume a lot if you don't chat for hours :rotfl:

I think these apps are absolutely great. Skype the best one!

redux

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

Just dial +44 7xxx to call a UK mobile regardless of where they are when you are in Spain or the USA. Some phones, such as the iPhone, can automatically adjust 07xxx to become +44 7xxx when roaming.

That is not about the iPhone, but a network function.

In the most commonly roamed countries it is not necessary to add the international prefix when calling to the home country.

These arrangements are called CAMEL, for anyone who would like to look up which countries this applies to, though I've noticed that network websites tend to have less detail about roaming than they used to.

eDicky

To avoid having to think about adding the international prefix and country code when roaming, you can store all your contacts with the + sign and country code in your mobile phone address book. It will still work exactly the same when you are in the same country as the called number.

For example, store your UK numbers beginning with +44 and without the initial zero, North American numbers with +1, etc etc, and it will work when you are at home or wherever you are in the world just the same.

You only need to replace the + sign with a particular international prefix for cheaper call service, when in certain countries such as Singapore, Thailand, and/or when using a local SIM.

tronator

redux wrote: »

That is not about the iPhone, but a network function.

In the most commonly roamed countries it is not necessary to add the international prefix when calling to the home country.

These arrangements are called CAMEL, for anyone who would like to look up which countries this applies to, though I've noticed that network websites tend to have less detail about roaming than they used to.

How would that even work? If I'm abroad and dial 0794xxxxx, how does the network operator even know that I try to call this number in the UK and not in the country I'm in at the moment.

As the other poster wrote, I always store numbers with the country code in my address book to avoid such problems.