Great Cheap Local Sim Card Hunt

urban469

Country Visited: SYRIA
Make of Sim: SYRIATEL "YA HALA"
Cost of Sim: 400 SP (£5)
Ease to obtain: very easy!! Damascus is full of annoying red Syriatel signs. Ask for the Ya Hala (pre-paid) card. Other cities equally easy - even in the villages you wont have much trouble - coverage in cities/highways is perfect.
Cost of calls: calls to mobiles are 10p/min, and to landlines 12p/min (it's cheaper to call mobiles becuase EVERYONE has one!!), domestic texts are 10p, international 12p, calls to the uk are 80p (no different to buying a calling card and using a landline).
Do you know of a weblink to the tariff: http://www.syriatel.com/products/pro.htm click on ya hala

MarkLS_2

Country Visited: Australia
Make of Sim: Telstra
Cost of Sim: 35$AUS includes $5 credit
Ease to obtain: Any Telstra phone shop in all main towns and cities
Cost of calls: Calls to UK $3AUS for 10min
Do you know of a weblink to the tariff https://www.telstraprepaidplus.com.au
Anything else that may be helpful: Only works in Australia unless you register and they ask for OZ address which most visitors will not have. Best thing is that adding $30AUS vouchers will give validity for 6 months each time so you can keep the same number until your next visit (like 2 years =$120 AUS) about £50 GBP

jdavtz

Country Visited: Kenya
Make of Sim: Safaricom
Cost of Sim: about 60p
Ease to obtain: dozens (hundreds?) of small kiosks on the streets in major towns, just pay cash.
Cost of calls: choose a tariff from https://www.safaricom.co.ke

budgetflyer

Spain
2 sims available from Amena and Vodaphone
from ebay seller
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Phone-Call_W0QQssPageNameZviQ3asibQ3astoreviewQQtZkm

I bought the AMENA with 18 euro credit one for £8 +£2.99 postage. calls cost 30 cents in spain, 48c peak/42c off peak to UK. No cost to recieve calls .
He/she is now also doing a VODAPHONE SIM with 24 euro credit for £17 + £2.50 postage. If you are in a group then this one may be better as you can phone other members of your group for as little as 1 cent /min in Spain

andy88_2

3 networks - Omnitel, Bité, Tele2

Extra (Omnitel) - LTL 19 with 10 credit = £4, £2
Labas (Bité) - LTL 19 with 7 credit
Pildyk (Tele2) - LTL 9.49 with 7 credit

local shops in each town

all have call charges same network around 4 to 6p/min, others ~10p
calls to UK - all about 40p/min

A Lithuanian friend had recommended Extra as the network with the best coverage, and it was. Some of us bought Tele2 though, and it was ok in the area where we were, but 3rd overall. Bité, though a good signal, seemed to have lower call quality (I roamed my O2 phone there as well). Extra top-ups extended the expiry date; when the credit expires the SIM is still valid for incoming calls (3 + 3 months). We were there last summer and for a visit in December I was able to have CS reactivate the card before arrival.

People who are visiting the other Baltic states may be more interested in Tele2, as it has free incoming roaming calls on their networks in Latvia and Estonia (I'm not sure if roaming is on by default, or must be activated).

Katykat

Country visited --Australia
Network -- Vodafone Red Sim pack
Cost $30 ( app £12 ) included $30 credit to be used within 30 days
Obtained at airports & Vodafone shops ( but my sister had mine waiting for me)
Can now be obtained in this country from
https://www.visas-australia.com/vodafone, but there is no mention of the $30 credit.
I intend to top it up on my next visit & keep the same number :rotfl:

Colibri

Country Visited: Estonia
Make of Sim: ZEN
Cost of Sim: 50 EEK (approx. 2 GBP), includes 50 EEK to use within 6/12.
Ease to obtain: YES
Cost of calls: as much details as you can) 1 SMS = 1 EEK
Weblink to the tariff: http://www.zen.ee/9.htm
Anything else that may be helpful:
Website only available in Estonian or Russian. But the shop assistant might be able to help to set it up! To activate the SIM card, call 16400. The startup PIN is 1234.
To find out how much is left on the card, call *135*1#. You get a free SMS as reply. To register for a bonus of .30 EEK per minute of received calls, call *135*7#.
To set up international roaming, call *135*94#. Calls to UK and most other EU countries are 6.95 EEK. (approx. 0.31 GBP)/min. Activation costs EEK 50.

homealone_2

any information on turkey? i have signed up for the passport servive with vodaphon but unsure of the benefits? any thing will help? usually spend fortune checking back home all s well. would probably be cheaper to take them all with me!

junglechaz

I purchased an Orange Sim card in Cameroon last Nov. Cost £5.00 including £4.00 calls which I used on making calls in the country. Real saving was for my family and friends ringing me @15p/min using telestunt/telesavers etc instead of calling my vodafone uk mobile - but that was cheaper for international texts which simply went on my monthly bill.

JPR

Country Visited: Sweden
Make of Sim: Halebop
Cost of Sim: Free
Ease to obtain: YES

Weblink to the tariff: www.halebop.se

Anything else that may be helpful: It was a couple of years ago & the website is in Swedish only but it's a fairly simple language and if you can get to a contact email address they all, almost without exception, speak & write good English. I asked about the possibility of paying for a Swedish SIM before leaving the UK (thus having the number) and the very nice chap from Halebop posted one from Sweden to the UK. All free of charge. No credit on the card (or possibly a pound or so) but easy to refill in any local shop which sell slottery tickets, cigarettes etc.
Works in the same way as Virgin in that it piggybacks a big telco. - no problem in the entire west coast area as far as I recall.