Great Cheap Local Sim Card Hunt

Davey_s2

I bought an Orange france sim a year or so back (for 30 euro), and when I went there again this year in june I could not get it reactivated, and would have to buy another sim for another 30 euros, which really annoyed me. I knew it would stop working, but the real annoyance is all 3 networks are the same over there, and I don't think you'd save the money you spend on the sim/credit etc. In the end I just roamed and used my pop3 email on my phone to keep in touch mainly, with a couple of calls here and there. Just got back from france again, but this time I rung orange uk and bought 10 quid's worth of roaming advance minutes (much as it pisses me off to spend money roaming as I think it is a scam of the highest order- remember in the good old days when you recieved calls for 15p per min in europe...) anyway when I rung orange uk they said if I bought the 10 quid they would also give me a fiver as well so spent 10 and got 16 quids worth of roaming. Still a con, but a bit of a better deal.

As for 0044 they are by far the most expensive resellers of sims I have ever seen. If they charged a realistic price for their sims then I would buy one from them every time I went abroad, but the savings aren't there if it's only going to be 1 trip use IMHO. in france the 20 quid payg sims seem a bargain by 0044's prices.

When I went to spain this year I bought an amena sim for myself , and 1 for my brother and we had them paired up so it was v cheap to call each other. Am off to a stag do this autumn so will bung a few euros on both of them, so when we go again next april we will still have the cheap calls.

Davey_s2

Oh and btw the gprs rates in spain charge per connection at a minimum charge, plus a per kb rate so because of that it was still cheaper to roam with orange for GPRS as although they charge 1p per kb, they don't charge per connection, and if you are only picking up/sending text emails which are a few kb each it was better value for me.

I spent about 3-4 quid on gprs for 2 weeks worth of text emails when I was in france earlier this year, HTH

JPR

Virginie wrote:

I am French, and what I would advise you is SFR. It isn't the cheapest, (the cheapest being Bouygues), but at least it has got a decent coverage. If you go for Bouygues, be sure to go in a relatively big town, as even if they're coverage is getting better, it is far to be perfect!

One thing though, if you don't top up your sfr sim every 6 month, it will die, which is pretty annoying. You can top it up from here though, with vodaphone vouchers, which is their partner in the UK.

They sell different packagesthe cheapest text one being 5 euros for 50 texts valid for a week, and the cheapest voice one for 10 euros. The new sim comes with some money on, but I can't quite remember how much it was...

Does anyone know the cost of a typical French SIM card if bought, for example, from a supermarket in France. I have looked at the ones for sale on UK websites & they are 30 quid or so. Seems quite high? How much less would it be if I waited (I would though, quite like the number before-hand)
Cheers

(apologies - did not read above!!! - are they all around £20 ? Would any particular network in France favour same-network calls as I would need 2) Ta.

Money_Man_Steve

Does anyone know of a good Pay-As-You-Go service that is good for California? I'm going to San Francisco in February and would like a SIM card, mainly to;

- send texts home to the UK
- make the odd brief local call (within San Francisco) to book restaurants, etc
- make the odd brief call home to the UK

I was looking at the US Virgin Mobile service, but they have a text-to-email service when sending abroad, which is a bit cumbersome.

Does anyone know of any good alternatives?

Money Man Steve

payless

looking at global sim 0044, as the call costs from my next holiday place (egypt)are only 13p pm

any one got experience of them

also as sims appear to be Isle of Man ( still 044 7 numbers) , can anyone confirm if calling them from UK is included in normal inclusive allowance

redux

It's a good question - the 0044 website has been altered, but is still rather less than upfront in hinting it is a UK number. You won't get an easy answer either from the networks. Orange and O2 say they will charge 15 and 14p per minute

payless

thanks , I have just ordered one anyway, so suppose will be able to test it out soon and have the answer

redux

You could also think of a local Egyptian SIM and use a callback service, also around 13p per minute

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/egypt.html

https://www.enlinea.com

payless

cheers ,
thought of paying £1pm for incoming calling concerns me,! as does the costs of somneone calling me

I have never used a call back service , as in most countries been happy to use my net2phone calling card backled up by mobile , the terms / costs of local sim means it would cost me as much, and would be a single use for that holiday - so the global thingy hopefully with meet my needs easier

Fred_Bear_2

HONG KONG
New World Mobility: "Roaming Stored-value Card - New Edition"

Sim is free - you just pay for prepay credit required (min 60HK$).
Available from 33 New World shops - see website for addresses.

Calls to Hong Kong landline & mobiles and UK landline 2p /min.
Calls to UK mobile 16p.
Receiving all calls 2p.
Texts to UK 15p
Link for tariffs:
http://www2.nwmobility.com/html/eng/default.jsp

While in Hong Kong this month I checked all available brands. For me, New World narrowly beat Peoples. These were the only two brands able to provide a leaflet with prices. Other brands were dearer: eg. the most visible brand, SmarTone (Vodafone), charge 8p /min local and 39p to UK.