Mobile Roaming: Cheapest Calls When You're Abroad

reclusive46

redux wrote: »

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.

Indeed, I'm not convinced the networks get the data all that cheap when we go abroad as it is. 3 and T-Mobile (To a point) probably suffer quite badly. Orange, O2 and Vodafone have no excuse. They are all big networks and Orange and Vodafone have networks in several countries.

But to a certain point they make a lot of it back because of the people roaming here. I was talking to a T-Mobile team leader and he told me that EE are specifically rolling out masts near the airports and docks, so people are roaming onto EE. They are trying to make a lot of money out of the olympics.

jnm21

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.

Is that not exactly what the vodafone.ie sim is giving?

The 0044 sim arrived yesterday! Looks fine & topcashback is tracking at over £1, thus bringing it under £20 with £5 credit. Personally (for what I need; sms & incoming calls, which would likely suffice for most) it beats those more prominently featured in the article.

buglawton

jnm21 wrote: »

Is that not exactly what the vodafone.ie sim is giving?
........

Voda idea is ok, EBay sim is £13 so still £33 for a weeks thrifty non tethered use... Free WiFi will probably be the way.

jnm21

Another option for partners/family with folks abroad is to keep an eye on vectone - I believe they have just included Europe mobiles in their 5p/min bundle...

YUP - aside from the 0044 sim (still the best for me), the Irish Meteor sim with free roaming plus a vectone sim with £10/200min bundle looks very competative (better than many UK mobile on network rates)! http://vectonemobile.co.uk/pay-as-you-go/bundles/europe-bundle.aspx

I just so happen to have my mum & FIL on vectone...

redux

jnm21 wrote: »

Another option for partners/family with folks abroad is to keep an eye on vectone - I believe they have just included Europe mobiles in their 5p/min bundle...

YUP - aside from the 0044 sim (still the best for me), the Irish Meteor sim with free roaming plus a vectone sim with £10/200min bundle looks very competative (better than many UK mobile on network rates)! http://vectonemobile.co.uk/pay-as-you-go/bundles/europe-bundle.aspx

I just so happen to have my mum & FIL on vectone...

Interesting. Do you happen to know if Vectone supports diversion of one's incoming calls?

jnm21

Sorry - no idea & had a good look on the site, but nothing mentioned! Good luck if you contact their CS!

redux

I won't bother. The only time I tried calling them they didn't answer for over 20 minutes

jnm21

They do reply if you email (to the best of their 'ability' - i.e. limited ability). One thing I don't like is that their tariff changes too often (I have seen supermarket offers run longer).

foxtrot_mike

Has anyone had any experience with aether mobile, I have one and having problems where some people are unable to call me.

Im trying to sort out the problem wiht them but their customer service is dreadful, so I may be looking to switch to something else, that said I dont use the service that much so may not be worth the hassle.

buglawton

buglawton wrote: »

......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.

Seems o2 have read my mind - they just introduced a Europe data roaming tariff of £2 for up to 25MB per day, apparently renewable within the day if the 25 MB is reached.

Ideal for smartphones then.

This will apply to Pay and Go users too - maybe enough reason to pop in an o2 SIM for the holiday?

Press release:
http://news.o2.co.uk/Press-Releases/O2-Travel-use-your-mobile-worry-free-when-abroad-37a.aspx

But I can find nothing on the o2 website yet.