Mobile Roaming: Cheapest Calls When You're Abroad

jnm21

Renaze_Peche wrote: »

Sorry I do NOT alone claim the prize.
As was once said you SHOULD remove the BEAM from thine own eye before removing the splinter from the others.

Get the drift??

What are you on? Or perhaps it is something you are OFF (i.e. lithium)?

jnm21

I am a little confused - both how Martin can recommend global sims that it is impossible to know how much it will cost to call (even the call checkers the article suggests using don't include Jersey/Guernsey/IOM & I have seen suggestions that O2 may include some/all, but I know that 3/T-mobile exclude all) and as to how OFFCOM can allow the current pig's ear of a number structure - even with much research, I can't define what 07 numbers are free to call (i.e. inclusive) - come on OFFCOM get us to a point where 077* through 079* are normal mobiles (all inclusive, for all)!

grumbler

Are you talking about calling from UK to abroad or about roaming (calling when you are abroad) that this thread is about?

jnm21

I am talking about international calling as specifically relevant to the roaming sims in this article (i.e. me getting a sim at a £5 to £30 cost to avoid 11p/min rec. charges, which will cost my dad 46p/min to ring is hardly clever).

Anyhow, I have a couple of interesting finds to report! While searching ebay for Italian sims (not easy to come by), a few Irish sims proclaimed 'perfect for Italy'! I was less than convinced, but

• Vodafone Ireland offer roaming in most of Europe; 50MB for approx £2.50 (compared to the best of our 3 & Orange being £3 for 30Mb/day)
• Meteor (Ireand) have no incoming call charges in most of Europe (though I can't see a use for this for me - same as the roaming sims - cost to call an Irish mobile is quite high)
• Vodafone Ireland charge normal Irish prices when roaming in the UK which combined with a seemingly temporary price of 10c/min seems to be the cheapest way to call an Irish mobile from the UK (possible tie in with the Meteor free incoming calls)
• Three Ireland offer '3 like home' (which includes the UK - strange then that 3 UK did away with 3 like home) - I have bought a mobile broadband sim with 2GB over a month for €10 on ebay - hoping this will work - perfect for our Italian break

buglawton

Good update, data roaming is becoming as important as call roaming.

jnm21

Glad the update is of interest.

I have now completed my sim arsenal for our upcoming trip (Italy via Dublin), with a global sim from 0044.co.uk (via TCB for 6.06% cashback). It is the only global sim with a genuine UK mobile number I can find & gives free roaming in most of Europe - a bit expensive at £21 delivered with only £5 credit (it is available for £51 with £40, but the rates are not that good, so I will only use it for the odd text, inc. "call me", & receiving, so not for me), but the best deal I could sniff out.

redux

jnm21 wrote: »

I am a little confused - both how Martin can recommend global sims that it is impossible to know how much it will cost to call (even the call checkers the article suggests using don't include Jersey/Guernsey/IOM & I have seen suggestions that O2 may include some/all, but I know that 3/T-mobile exclude all) and as to how OFFCOM can allow the current pig's ear of a number structure - even with much research, I can't define what 07 numbers are free to call (i.e. inclusive) - come on OFFCOM get us to a point where 077* through 079* are normal mobiles (all inclusive, for all)!

It's up to the mobile networks to define their tariff bundles, not Ofcom

Once upon a time there weren't any contracts or payg bundles with inclusive minutes to other networks, just landlines and same network.

When they started appearing with cross-network minutes, this was just a market evolution, not as a result of a mandate from Ofcom.

As you've found, O2 and Orange are better at including a wider range of other numbers than Three and T-mobile and Vodafone.

jnm21 wrote: »

I am talking about international calling as specifically relevant to the roaming sims in this article (i.e. me getting a sim at a £5 to £30 cost to avoid 11p/min rec. charges, which will cost my dad 46p/min to ring is hardly clever).

It's true that as the incoming roaming rates drop - and they will again in a couple of months' time - the cost of forwarding your own number to the roaming SIM is comparable with the roaming rate.

We may be at the point where it's not necessarily worth worrying about having a global SIM for travel to Europe only and for less than a lot of calls.

Someone who expects a lot of incoming calls, and has a lot of bundle minutes so they are effectively cheaper pro rata, and is on a network which doesn't include roaming SIMs might set up some forwarding personally using a VoIP provider and a landline number. That forwarding could be to a roaming SIM or indeed a local SIM.

redux

buglawton wrote: »

Good update, data roaming is becoming as important as call roaming.

Several countries' Vodafone networks have a daily bundle like the Irish one found above, for example Italy, Netherlands and UK.

Vodafone UK has a monthly add-on option for contract customers, which might be included free on monthly rent above a certain figure

There are various other UK roaming data bundles

There's Abroadband, which has already been mentioned, but other providers are dropping into that roughly 50 cents a megabyte area, and there may be more emerging when wholesale rates go down again soon, and perhaps more reciprocal deals are done.

I think Simyo Germany is interesting for some people, because as well as pro rata in that sort of range, and small billing units of 10 kB, it has a weekly 50 MB for €5 option (100 kB units on this bundle though, so don't keep connecting and disconnecting for low use)

But realistically I think it's going to remain the case for some time that a local SIM is the only real option for more than modest data, with typically €5 to €10 per month for 500 MB or 1 GB or more, though I did have one last summer which was equivalent to not much more than £1.

Most people can cover most of what they want by taking two or more phones, and put a local data SIM in their favourite phone and have modest phone(s) for their home and/or roaming SIM.

buglawton

By holding back on decent data roaming rates, the mobile operators only succeed in sending me & OH to WiFi cafes (and also to check in advance if the accommodation abroad will have free WiFi in the building).

There is a convenience price point where I would pay for roaming 3g data - somewhere under the £4 per day mark perhaps (with say a 50 MB cap). But the mobile operators don't seem to want the money.

redux

buglawton wrote: »

By holding back on decent data roaming rates, the mobile operators only succeed in sending me & OH to WiFi cafes (and also to check in advance if the accommodation abroad will have free WiFi in the building).

There is a convenience price point where I would pay for roaming 3g data - somewhere under the £4 per day mark perhaps (with say a 50 MB cap). But the mobile operators don't seem to want the money.

There's no point in them offering something which costs them money, and there aren't yet the wholesale and reciprocal rates to support this.

Get a local SIM. If the main interest is data, the nationality of the SIM doesn't matter to you. Use another phone for ordinary calls, or use VoIP over this 3g data if possible.