Mobile Roaming: Cheapest Calls When You're Abroad

cheesyweasy

I used to live in France and still have a house there, but cut the landline because I had to come back to England for family reasons. I keep my french orange mobile topped up by buying a 100 euro credit which gave a bonus of 50 euros, each 6 months. The system is such that if the credit isn't topped up before the expiry date all credit is lost. Thus for 200 euros a year with moderate use I had a phone to use over there. Can anybody suggest a cheaper way to have year round use of a mobile in France please. Carol

john216

Hi 1st posting so maybe wrong section
Purchased Oneroam USA sim plus credit and

Have just tried to activate Jolt (Oneroam) sim card and been told that it is not connected to the internet to contact Libranet ?, have tried to call but number does not work and directory inquiries does not have a number for it. Have they gone bust

redux

john216 wrote: »

Hi 1st posting so maybe wrong section
Purchased Oneroam USA sim plus credit and

Have just tried to activate Jolt (Oneroam) sim card and been told that it is not connected to the internet to contact Libranet ?, have tried to call but number does not work and directory inquiries does not have a number for it. Have they gone bust

I don't know. I think Jolt is from Beyond Wireless, and I hadn't heard of Libranet. I'd assume the first place to enquire is Oneroam, or is that what you meant?

redux

cheesyweasy wrote: »

I used to live in France and still have a house there, but cut the landline because I had to come back to England for family reasons. I keep my french orange mobile topped up by buying a 100 euro credit which gave a bonus of 50 euros, each 6 months. The system is such that if the credit isn't topped up before the expiry date all credit is lost. Thus for 200 euros a year with moderate use I had a phone to use over there. Can anybody suggest a cheaper way to have year round use of a mobile in France please. Carol

Unfortunately this problem of really ungenerous credit expiry terms seems to apply to most French SIM cards

You could compare most of them at http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/france.html

I'd suggest one possibility is Simyo, with 3 months expiry and 19 cent a minute calls to France. I think you buy it online, and perhaps you can top up like that.

Or another option is Leclerc, which stays valid for a year, but has a €1.50 monthly fee

redux

loopey wrote: »

Re; advise for boss

Thank you iceburn and redux for your thoughts. Have been unable to respond earlier due to illness.

I am going to get him a payg vodaphone sim for most of his trips (france, malta, australia) and thought that he would be better off buying a sim card when actually in South Africa and forwarding his calls from his O2 phone to spare phone with this sim in it?

Does this sound about right?

Sorry if asking obvious questions, but finding whole thing a bit overwhelming!

As you've now mentioned O2 as his main contract (did you mean contract?), that might change the advice slightly

It might be worth adding O2's My Europe Extra add-on, which costs £10 a month, or £5 a month on business contracts if booked for a year, then incoming calls in Europe are free, outgoing 25 pence a minute.

Forwarding O2 directly to a South African mobile would be I think 30 pence a minute with O2's ITS. But I'd say check this. Ok for not too many calls, but it might start to add up.

But also think about one of the global SIMs, maybe Easyroam Geosim or Sim4travel, with free incoming calls in Australia and South Africa as well as Europe, as forwarding O2 to these would come from the contract's inclusive minutes. Depending how many calls would be received, it might be worth having this as well or instead of the My Europe Extra ...

suecoo66

My daughter works on a cruise ship and in 2007 I purchased a Sim4travel for her. Was one of the best at the time but without telling her they change the countries where you can receive free calls which resulted in her credit being used extremely quickly! Means we can't call her that often now. They also increased the minimum amount you can top up by so you now have to put on at least £20. We have to use my husbands O2 payg phone to ring her as my TM contract phone does not include minutes to Jersey. I've looked at Go Sim but after looking into it I think that it may result in expensive call charges for us.
Can anyone suggest a good roaming Sim or any other ideas welcome?
I also looked at Vodafone but as they've dropped their roaming charges for the summer but they will prob put them back up in September. She is due to go back on the ship end of August, initially in the med area but later will be worldwide so need something that covers Australia, America, etc.
We also want to be able to ring her from our mobiles without running up huge bills.

deano27_2

How about mo-call.com I have had a look at it looks like a bit of software that sits on your phone alllowing the call back functionality. Saves getting another sim, but I presume you will pay the incoming rate and possibley an international SMS to get the call setup....

Raven

Was thinking about getting a couple of Vodafon(uk) payg sims for use in Spain for two weeks.

With their special offer on roaming for the summer does it make them the best for calling home and calling each other in resort?

Can it be used with their freedom packs or does that not work when your abroad?


Does this work out a better deal than buying a local sim in Benidorm, which is what we usually do.


Thanks for any tips.


Raven

redux

suecoo66 wrote: »

My daughter works on a cruise ship and in 2007 I purchased a Sim4travel for her. Was one of the best at the time but without telling her they change the countries where you can receive free calls which resulted in her credit being used extremely quickly! Means we can't call her that often now. They also increased the minimum amount you can top up by so you now have to put on at least £20. We have to use my husbands O2 payg phone to ring her as my TM contract phone does not include minutes to Jersey. I've looked at Go Sim but after looking into it I think that it may result in expensive call charges for us.
Can anyone suggest a good roaming Sim or any other ideas welcome?
I also looked at Vodafone but as they've dropped their roaming charges for the summer but they will prob put them back up in September. She is due to go back on the ship end of August, initially in the med area but later will be worldwide so need something that covers Australia, America, etc.
We also want to be able to ring her from our mobiles without running up huge bills.

Some of the other gobal SIMs have Isle of Man numbers. This would have the same issue of not being inclusive on T-mobile. Perhaps a cheaper way to call these than using O2 Pay&Go would be to use your T-mobile or landline with a 18185 account.

I'd suggest Easyroam, Geosim or Worldsim, which are resellers of the same underlying product Callkey, or perhaps Gymsim or a couple of other resellers of Wire9. There is also ekit - they sometimes sell their SIMs cheaper on ebay than their own site.

If the departure is not immediate, and if she will be going there, then wait a week or two, as the first 3 named are about to launch dual-ID SIMs which will have cheap roaming in USA and Canada. Ekit launched one a few weeks ago.

angus1 wrote: »

My son is going to Canada soon for 2 months. Can someone please advise of a simple cheap way for him to call and text from Canada. He will have little access to shops etc whilst there so need to set it up before he goes.

He wishes to stay on PAYG and not go on contract or the bill will get out of hand.

Thanks

Sorry for having missed your post, and I hope this reply isn't a bit late

THe Canadian network SIM details can be seen on http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/canada.html

Other than those, and as it sounds like it's something to arrange before getting there, the same as just above remarks apply about the dual-ID SIMs, which some of these global SIM companies have just launched or are just about to.

techmax76

I have checked the rates in justvoip and I found out that they really a lot cheaper.