Mobile Roaming: Cheapest Calls When You're Abroad

mothership_2

M'off to California with an iPhone 3GS on 1st September for a month then onwards to New Zealand to live.

I'm currently on contract to 3 network until expiry in December. 3 are too expensive to consider using whilst in USA. I'll try to just use data on wi-fi but will need some usage outside wi-fi zones. Estimate 200MB for month total and only local US calls hopefully.

Was planning to obtain USA SIM only PAYG package but have read that it's tricky to buy one if you're not a USA resident. Then sort something local out in NZ.

Read about the TRU SIM PAYG deal here but bit confused. Data is either 20p per MB on the TRU UK website but only 15c per MB on the USA website. 20p is about 31c so the USA website is cheaper by half. Plus I only need it for a month and I've read they charge you after a period of inactivity.

Can anyone suggest how I might be best to make this work please?

grumbler

mothership wrote: »

Was planning to obtain USA SIM only PAYG package but have read that it's tricky to buy one if you're not a USA resident.

mrcamp wrote: »

I can confirm that you do NOT need to be s US citizen to sign up for any plan on TMobile. As long as you have enough money on your sim to vover the plan, You can add whatever plan you desire. You can do it via your phone, in a TMobile store, or on the web.

......................

mrcamp

This has been discussed to death here! Get to the USA walk into a tmobile or AT&T store, or even walmart, radio shack, etc. get a sim or sim+phone, top it up and sign up for a data plan of your choice. For example tmobile has the the $2/day unlimited txt, talk, and data. Search this form of check their respective websites.

mothership wrote: »

Can anyone suggest how I might be best to make this work please?

Highland_Lass_2

Got an HTC Desire S on an o2 contract. Going to the US for 18 days in October. Did think of taking my phone but o2 charges are very high. Have tried to find out myself but drawing a blank. Can anyone please help on what's the best option. Would ideally like to use it for calls/texts (not many I wouldn't think) but also to go online for making bookings for accommodation. Thanks in advance.

indiestar

Probably a bit slow since they did this a few months ago but... I'm absolutely furious to learn that o2 have stopped their My Europe Extra bolt on. It was perfect when I was going back and forth to Europe & Ireland (I live in Northern Ireland so we can receive some unnecessary expensive rates for nothing).

But I've came across the 0044 website and their offers. Can anyone let me know how they are?

For a country sim.. for example Italy, they say that they gave you an o2 number and thus o2 users at home in the UK can call you for free (just like the europe extra bolt on). Does anyone know if this is true and if it works?

Cheers!

Highland_Lass_2

Highland_Lass wrote: »

Got an HTC Desire S on an o2 contract. Going to the US for 18 days in October. Did think of taking my phone but o2 charges are very high. Have tried to find out myself but drawing a blank. Can anyone please help on what's the best option. Would ideally like to use it for calls/texts (not many I wouldn't think) but also to go online for making bookings for accommodation. Thanks in advance.

Still struggling to find anything. Can anyone help please.

grumbler

Highland_Lass wrote: »

... Have tried to find out myself but drawing a blank.... .

Highland_Lass wrote: »

Still struggling to find anything. Can anyone help please.

How about the post #865 - right above yours?
Make sure your handset is unlocked.

redux

indiestar wrote: »

But I've came across the 0044 website and their offers. Can anyone let me know how they are?

For a country sim.. for example Italy, they say that they gave you an o2 number and thus o2 users at home in the UK can call you for free (just like the europe extra bolt on). Does anyone know if this is true and if it works?

I'm slightly confused by your comment about a country SIM.

As well as some single-country SIMs, they also offer a global SIM, and perhaps they are recommending this for those places where they don't have an arrangement for a local SIM. I suspect this is what you are actually looking at.

The global SIM they resell is from a firm called ekit, which has several products, some with either Isle of Man or Jersey numbers, though there is also one which carries an actual O2 allocated number, and this is the one at 0044.

The relevance of discussing whether the number is on a main network prefix allocation or not, such as ekit and a number of others such as the various resellers of Cloud9, or Swiftnet's Traveltalksim, is that some main networks include such numbers in their inclusive minute bundles and some do not and instead charge them at rather high prices of 30 to 50 pence a minute (which doesn't really fit with marketing materila which suggests all European mobiles are cheap to call, but I digress).

So for a lot of potential customers the allocation of an O2 prefixed number to this SIM is interesting, as they might divert to it from spare minutes in their monthly bundle.

Sorry for the length of this, but I'm getting there.

As to whether O2 will count this as an actual O2 number that they include in any free calls to O2, I think that will be a separate point.

Specifically, it will be included in an O2 bundle including all mobiles, but I don't think I can assume it will be counted in an extra option of free calls to O2. In fact - though without having tested it and before other people come to answer the question - I suspect not.

The reason is that the O2 number on the SIM is as a result of an mvno agreement between Manx Telecom and O2.

O2 used to own Manx, and it was sold to other investors a while ago. Subsequently this mvno arrangement dates from last autumn or so, and was apparently set up for use with these SIMs.

People with other virtual providers which use O2, such as for example giffgaff, will find that any bundles they have to the same virtual network do not include calls to O2 customers, and O2 customers will find that their bundle of calls to O2 only does not include customers on the virtual networks.

So I am tending to wonder if that also happens with the O2 allocated number on this SIM, as the actual identity will I assume show that is on this arrangement with Manx.

I could be wrong though, so it would be worth a question or some trial calls

So the short version as summary - until that question is answered, you can safely assume that the number on this SIM will be included in an O2 bundle of calls to all mobile networks, but not necessarily also in a separate bundle of calls to O2 numbers only.

If someone can check this with a couple of trial calls, I could end up editing this. I have an O2 contract with some O2 only calls, but my couple of ekit SIMs are one with a Manx number and one Jersey, so I can't check it myself.

koru

For smartphone users, the Vonage Mobile app now includes an option for incoming calls to your mobile number to be routed through the app using Wi-Fi, so you don't pay roaming rates for international calls when you are overseas. Currently, Vonage provide this service at no cost, but presumably they will eventually switch to charging. I would guess maybe one or two pence per minute.

Has anyone tried it? I'm not going to be overseas for months, so I won't get the chance to try it out. I did try this app for outbound calls from Austria earlier this year and it seemed to work reasonably well, although I was on a very low bandwidth Wi-Fi system so I did have quite a bit of dropouts.

I'm not really sure how it works, though. If someone tries to call my mobile, how do they persuade my mobile phone company to transfer the call to Wi-Fi (which means they lose their cut of the roaming charges I would have paid)?

docker30

Mam00se wrote: »

hi, I've just been in Japan on business and I had my Data Roaming turned on. I've now been stung with a near £1000 bill from vodafone. I can't possibly afford to pay the bill, does anyone have any advice?

Spending cap on using mobile internet overseas

We want to help you have greater control over how much you spend when you're using mobile internet when you're overseas.
Unless you have opted out of the cap, we'll cap your monthly mobile internet spending at €50 both in our Europe Zone and our Rest of World Zone.
We'll send you notifications when you have reached 80% and 100% of your allowance.
When you've reached the spending cap, you won't be able to use mobile internet abroad for the rest of the month - unless you choose to opt out.




This is off Vodafones website ,does it mean you are opted in to spending cap by default or do you need to send Text START to opt in.Might be relevant to unexpected roaming bills.