Mobile Roaming: Cheapest Calls When You're Abroad

inmypocketnottheirs

davidoftheshire wrote: »

Hi,

My question relates specifically to texting from overseas.

My mother in law is going on a trip to Hong Kong, New Zealand, Hawaii and San Francisco (a 2 month holiday).

She has an Orange PAYG SIM and has asked me what would be the best deal for texting from these places. Not really interested in voice calls.

I had a look at the Orange web site which says that PAYG sims should already be set-up for overseas use and looking at the costs to send from the countries above, seems to be about 45p - 50p per text.

Now, is there a better deal to be had? Would it be worth her buying another networks PAYG sim to use when travelling that has cheaper texts?

Whatever we choose, it has to be simple - no different from her texting as she does today on Orange.

Any info would be useful.

Thanks.

The cheapest way is to use a local sim card. It means buying one at each point of call and changing the card. It would be best to ensure that all the numbers that will be needed will be stored in the phone's memory.

andyk123_2

Hi looking for some advice i am travelling to oz in December for 4 weeks and am looking to use my o2 mobile phone,my partner also has an o2 mobile.Is it going to be cheaper to buy a seperate sim card or should we use the o2 network for calling each other any advice will be welcome

GermanBarb

My son is going to Austria for 5 months. I need him to be able to make free/very cheap calls and texts to his friends back here. A 3 network Skype phone sounds like a good idea to me, but I have been told that he needs to buy the phone and sim when he gets to Austria. Is this true? Or can he get it here before he goes? Also are the Skype calls really free or do you get free calls but still have to pay for the internet bit?

Sorry but I can't get my head round this and can't understand why he can't take the phone and sim with him. Can anybody help please I need an answer within the next week as he goes then. Thank you, Barb.

*srjp*

Does this seem like a good deal or not compared to what's on the high street? I tend to buy a local pay as you go phone if I'm in a country for a few months but then I need to give everyone a new number each time.

http://natives.co.uk/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=9&listcatid=39&listitemid=12494

redux

*srjp* wrote: »

Does this seem like a good deal or not compared to what's on the high street? I tend to buy a local pay as you go phone if I'm in a country for a few months but then I need to give everyone a new number each time.

aether mobile is one of a number of resellers of Cloud9

it depends on what countries you mostly go to, as some local SIMs will have cheaper int'l rates or may be used with callthrough or callback providers, but it's certainly worth considering a global SIM or two as well

note that the 078722 IOM number doesn't necessarily come out of all UK network minutes though

redux

GermanBarb wrote: »

My son is going to Austria for 5 months. I need him to be able to make free/very cheap calls and texts to his friends back here. A 3 network Skype phone sounds like a good idea to me, but I have been told that he needs to buy the phone and sim when he gets to Austria. Is this true? Or can he get it here before he goes? Also are the Skype calls really free or do you get free calls but still have to pay for the internet bit?

Sorry but I can't get my head round this and can't understand why he can't take the phone and sim with him. Can anybody help please I need an answer within the next week as he goes then. Thank you, Barb.

He could take a phone with him, provided it is not locked to a network, and get a SIM card there. You'd also have to check if the phone works with 3 and Skype.

3 UK and 3 Austria count as different networks

The Skype calls offer isn't quite the same on 3 Austria, for example there's a44 monthly fee, and here is some info I found (about halfway down the first page)

http://www.drei.at/portal/de/privat/tarife/zusatzpakete/Tarife_Zusatzpakete_Detail.html

http://www.drei.at/Medien/media/contentpdf/tarife/HandyMatrix.pdf

This package has useful intenet and cheap int'l calls add-on options

http://www.drei.at/webshop/prepareSelectionTarifDetail.do?tarifId=ATS0052&snId=C373563


It might be worth looking at T-mobile Austria, as one of the options has 1 cent a minute calls to 5 favourite numbers, one of which could be a callthrough access such as JustVoip or DialNow

http://t-mobile.at/privat/tarife/klax_wertkarte/klax_myfaves/index.html


You can find info on all the austrian networks and virtual brands at http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/austria.html

There are some with cheaper int'l calls direct, such as eety and Vectone (2 c/min to UK landlines on the latter, 10 c connection fee)

I'd be tempted to go for data packages on 3 or yesss, either for browsing on phone or laptop, or to try out with VoIP from the phone.

Sorry this rambles a bit, but it's a selection of ideas rather than a definitive suggestion ...

redux

andyk123 wrote: »

Hi looking for some advice i am travelling to oz in December for 4 weeks and am looking to use my o2 mobile phone,my partner also has an o2 mobile.Is it going to be cheaper to buy a seperate sim card or should we use the o2 network for calling each other any advice will be welcome

No, don't use O2 a lot, as it will cost 60p to 99p a minute to make a call, 43p to 99p to receive, depending whether contract or pay & go

But it isn't all bad - if you have O2 contracts, you can use your inclusive text messages up at 4 for 1 while abroad

Get either Vodafone UK SIMs and use Vodafone Passport, or get local Australian SIMs - details at http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/australia.html

Some people on here know more about Australian SIMs, so do a forum search for Australia to find more comments

redux

Raven wrote: »

Going to lanzarote in a few days. . . .

We have 3 contract phones and also Vodafon payg - whats the best options for us at the moment?

If I'm not too late and this trip is still in front of you:

either Vodafone Passport, or O2's add-on Single Country Spain add-on, or local SIMs, depending on whether your calls are mostly to each other or to and from home

quite a few of the Spanish virtual brands have cheap int'l calls, but also they seem to like rather fat connection fees per call

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/spain.html

AnnaV

Hello,

My husband is going to be travelling in the USA a lot next year, what would be the best SIM for him to get? Would it be possible to get one so he can use his Blackberry?

HardTimes_2

Hi - have a pay monthly contract with 3, and will be in cyprus for a couple of weeks. I'm confused about cost of voicemail.... MSE article worried me as it says if your voicemail's called, whether the phone's on or off, most networks charge the overseas rate for receiving the call...
3 website says... You won't be charged for any missed calls that are diverted to voicemail while you're abroad. But if you manually choose to divert calls to voicemail, you’ll have to pay the international charge for receiving them. Dial ##002# to cancel any diverts before you go away....
I spoke to 3 but their explanation just left me confused ... I can understand being be charged for listening to messages while abroad because the number you use to access your voicemail is a UK number. But If I have my phone switched off most of the time, and don't pick up voicemail... would there still be a charge?

Thanks for any help
PS (can anyone say how easy it is to get cheap phone cards on cyprus?)