Great Cheap Local Sim Card Hunt

canjoos

Country Visited: Saudi Arabia

Make of Sim: SAWA

Cost of Sim: SR200 (£29) Includes the same value in call credits.

Ease to obtain: Availanble on the plane from duty free on Saudi Arabian Airlines. Also available from mobile outlets in the country

Cost of calls: International texts are around 12 p. I always use texts to tell family and friends to call me. Again using Cheapest Call Checker

Do you know of a weblink to the tariff ???

Anything else that may be helpful: In general, it would be helpful if airlines sold the sim cards on the plane. What do others think of this idea?

seth

Country Visited:Sri Lanka
Make of Sim Dialog GSM
Cost of Sim:£20
Ease to obtain: Purchase from Dialog main offices (Takes about 20 minutes for a PAYG need to take your passport etc)
Cost of calls: Calls cost about 2Rs per minute 180Rs to the Point
Do you know of a weblink to the tariff
http://www.w2forum.com/i/Dialog_GSM__MTN_/

Anything else that may be helpful:
Aviod the roaming option it cost an arm and a leg! the deposit is £200 if you are going to India just buy a SIM there. I used Spice telecom, the market is huge go with what the locals tell you!

I took 8 phones with me from the UK these were free from Orange due to an oversight on the website where customers on the OVP virgin contract got free phones like customers who paid! Got the phones unlocked by kind MSE chappie Drachir, had some contract phones got them unlocked at the car boot £3 per phone. Sold each phone unlocked for around £70 at Blue Grass Communication, Libery Plaza in columbo, had some other handset unlocked locally. Beware the cost of unlocking in Sri Lanka seems to be related to the cost of the phone! I had a cheap phone Siemans E50 £3 to unlock, the phone cost me £3 to buy in the UK from Orange! They charged be £7 for a mid range phone and £10 for a fancy one. I put all the phone boxes (cardboard) in one suitcase, the chargers in another, and carried the phones, the kids played games on them in transit in Kuwait.Dialog has great coverage countrywide and is very reliable you can buy top up scratch card anywhere (I mean even small stalls at the roadside) I had to call the UK alot as my Dad was ill while we were away on holiday, the costs was <£25 for hours of calls back to the UK. Local calls were very cheap.

Just take the phone in the box (they resell the phones to customers so only phones as new with boxes are worth selling) chargers batteries etc are cheap so stock up for a few pound you can get these cheaper than Ebay!

Take a cheap unlock phone from the UK like the Nokias on Virgin mobile. Get the unlock code free from MSE Mobile unlocking forum. Avoid expensive calls from the hotel.

knuckledragger

redux,
re nrj sims- they were never used to call the UK A quick text to a friend's UK phone was all that was needed for them to call me!

With six of us in France, all using nrj sims, we were calling/texting each other often to keep in touch and arrange meets.

redux

Ok - yes it's usually better for a group to all get the same network

unsure

We're off to the US in a few weeks time and trying to figure out the best way to have some mobile comms, not much for yakking or calling home , just for making arrnagements or getting directions as we drive up from Georgia through North and South Carolina...and for possible emergencies. Wouldn't anticipate more than half hour of calls over two weeks.

Wife's phone is triband but we've been told it will cost apx £25 to unlock
and will invalidate her two year guarantee with vodafone(guess I could buy a cheap tri-band for the same price). Looks to me like getting a sim which will cover the areas we need (Gerogia, South Carolina, North carolina, Wash DC)will cost $50 (provider is cingular) and will also cost a further 25 us cents a minute for calls and a mimnimun of $1 each day it's used. Also the sim dies if it's not used every 30 days so we can't even just leave it with our chums as a spare at their holiday home as we'd planned. Friend we'll be staying with looked into buying a cheap local paygo phone, charging it up and sending it over, but said it cost too much to be worthwhile...and account expired if not used.

Vodafone are quoting £1 a minute for my wife's roaming calls as a contract customer and it looks to me that may be the cheapest option for our needs and will save mucking about with her phone.

Given all the talk about the value of local sims, am I missing something somewhere or are we just unlucky to be going to a part of the states where coverage is patchy and there doesn't seem to be much competition between providers? Or is just becuase we don't chat on the phone much that we seem unlikley to benefit from such deals?
Any advice and insight would be very welcome.

redux

unsure wrote:

Given all the talk about the value of local sims, am I missing something somewhere or are we just unlucky to be going to a part of the states where coverage is patchy and there doesn't seem to be much competition between providers? Or is just becuase we don't chat on the phone much that we seem unlikley to benefit from such deals?
Any advice and insight would be very welcome.

T-mobile and Cingular are the main GSM networks, but there are several virtual operators as well. See http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

As you can see, there are several possibilities around 15c per minute, though US networks charge incoming calls as well.

Cingular uses 850 more than 1900, so you might either tend towards T-mobile with your own phone, or get a local one.

unsure

Thanks redux,
I have looked at that site. However, given the very limited use we are likely to make of mobile phones on our 2 week trip and the set up cost of new tri-band (or unlock wife's at circa £25), and the fact that it seems any US sim ( at probably $30 or $50) we buy will expire with all remaining credit within a few weeks I'm still not convinced that we aren't acutally better off paying higher roaming charges on the few calls we'll make.
Wife's contract allows international roaming at £1 per minute and I'd be very surprised if we used more than 30 mins in the two weeks so we may stick with that.

redux

Ok. Also look into getting a calling card to make calls from landlines for about 2 cents per minute. I've got Bizon from Masterbell

https://www.cloncom.com
https://www.masterbell.com
https://www.pinonsale.com

knuckledragger

I got an email the other day stating that Simply-Fone are now offering the "Simply Travel Sim" which gives users access to free reception of calls in quite a few countries. Automatic top up of credit is available for when it drops below £5. There is an annual renewal fee of £10 and it uses an IOM registered sim with a callback system. Useful for friends and family who can dial UK sims from their inclusive minutes.

http://www.simply-fone.co.uk/

hth

pennymakespounds

knuckledragger .. i enquired on here a couple of weeks ago about best way for son to phone back to Uk whilst he was on hols in spain.

i eventually got a Simply Travel Sim ... and put £40 of credit on it.

Found the website confusing and emailed them loads of questions trying to understand how it worked and all the charges .

Sim arrived within 36 hours . It is an O2 mobile number registered in Isle of Man.

Son has put the sim into his normal nokia handset which is unlocked.

When he phones the uk ... to landklines is 28p a minute and to mobiles is 40p a minute.
Texts i think are 25p
There are no roaming charges for incoming calls.

He's rung us a couple if times .. excellent quality. No hassle.

I then wanted to experiment ...

today phoned him on it via our 1899 ..... worked a treat ... charged us the 10p a minute that is the normal " landline to mobile" weekday charge from 1899 ( 3p at weekends even better !!)

Tomorrow i'm going to phone from my t mobile flext . Simply Sim customer services said that it won't use inclusive minutes ... and would charge " normal mobi to mobi .. approx 40p a minute "
We'll see .

Certainly phoning out from our landline with 1899 ....really cheap