Using Mobile Phone Whilst Abroad

sammybo22

A friend of mine is currently working in the Netherlands for 3 months. He has a UK mobile but it is costing him an absolute fortune to phone home. Receiving calls also costs extra money. Even a text message is 90p.

Any thoughts guys

Many thanks

Sam

Browntoa

local sim card ??

sammybo22

Its still going to cost just as much as it is his family back in the UK that he is contacting.

pilotdave

Three have the cheapest rates for the EU.

25p per min to make a call in EU
10p per min to receive a call in EU

Stephb1986_2

it cost me £300 to txt my fella when i was in turkey for a week. he would be best getting a local sim card and sending one to his family it should be a bit cheaper

redux

Local SIM cards on the virtual operators (like Virgin or Tesco here) IDT Lebara and Ortel have 11 or 12 cent a minute calls to UK landlines, about 35 cent mobiles.

http://www.idtmobile.nl/
http://www.lebara-mobile.nl/en/
http://www.ortelmobile.nl/index.php?lng_id=EN

It looks like Lebara has bonus credit offers at the moment

Vodafone UK with Passport costs 75p a call, then the usual fees, available on contract and PAYT, for calls up to an hour - could be useful for long incoming calls from family ...

O2 UK has an option called My Europe Extra, available for contract and PAYG. £10 a month gives free incoming calls, outgoing 25p a minute.

It's possible to work around the 25p by using a separate callback service, which converts incoming to outgoing calls - you answer yours and have either a dialling tone or the destination ringing - from 5 or 10 pence a minute, the sum of the tariffs for the 2 calls connected together.

There are some global roaming SIMs, some with Isle of Man or Jersey numbers, which have free incoming roaming calls in many countries. Their tariffed outgoing rates are 20 to 30p a minute, so as the Eurotariffs arrive they aren't a huge amount cheaper unless you add more callback complications, and for people calling them from a UK mobile, they don't come out of many networks inclusive minutes.

So I'd suggest either/both a local SIM and/or the O2 UK deal. Using the local for outgoing, O2 incoming would be the simple option if callback sounds too complicated to mess about with.

Cheap text messages can be sent by using a small Java program downloaded into the phone, which then sends an equivalent using wap/gprs data, costing from 2 to 5 cents, plus your network data cost of a penny or two. I'd recommend Vyke Lite, but there are also Smsbug, Mobisms, Vgsmail and Voipbuster.

Vyke and VB Java clients can also trigger callback for the phone calls, or some of the Betamax VoIP providers have sms-triggered callback.

If he has occasional access to a landline, but not for running up outgoing calls, then setting up callback with this is very cheap indeed.