best deal for safe roaming in Europe?

m_rodent

hi,

I am not an expert or big user when it comes to mobiles... I have an old Nokia 5146 on T-Mobile PAYG which I never phone out of ever... but it suits me down to the ground - free voicemail, 10p a text etc.

My clients (and even friends sometimes!) phone me on it and the way I live means I can go anywhere to work... so I'd quite like to go to a few points in Europe, with a laptop in my bag...

I realise I'd have to get a new dual-band phone for most European countries - this isn't a problem... the thing I'm really scared of is the kind of horror stories to do with massive voicemail charges etc. (one documented in another strand here). The charges for receiving calls & voicemail seem pretty horrendous even if you don't get any nasty surprises... I don't know how texting charges are affected, nor whether PAYG represents some form of insurance against massive unexpected voicemail bills...

Can anyone say what the best and safest way of roaming in Europe (not USA) would be for me? Bearing in mind particularly that I hvae no interest in making calls, only receiving... (would be quite happy to make calls from payphones using call abroad card if necessary)

all vastly confusing ??? - thanks for any info!

Mike Rodent

GLXTURBODIESEL

The best option whilst travelling to europe is to purchase a payg sim for that country, this drops the price of calls on payg from the average £1.50 per minute to 30p per minute - big saving
Although this is not suitable if you are visiting more than one country or in your case (as you have clearly stated) you are only interested in receiving calls, not making them.
For yourself - first of all, as im sure you are aware, if your using a payg sim, you cannot 'run up' a bill - you can only use whatever credit is on your sim.
The best option is to either disable voicemail or to setup a voicemail pin number and give that number to a trusted friend who can access your voicemail from the UK and text you the message.
the cost of sending a international text is generally 20p, but you should check with T-Mobile.
Also although your nokia 5146 is a single band (1800Mhz) handset, it will still work in many european countries that have networks that operate on the 1.8Ghz frequency, these countries include France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Holland.

thefirs

Buy a Virgin Mobile sim and it will work perfectly well in your 5146.  As GLX says, disable voicemail, then you'll *only* be charged 30p perminute to receive calls.  Making them will cost 60, but if a call were to be diverted to voicemail after ringing and timing out, then you'd pay the sum of these two charges plus the cost of retrieving.

Another approach would be to leave voicemail enabled and have all calls diverted there when abroad, but leave an announcement saying "dont leave messages, but text me if there's anything really urgent"  

m_rodent

thanks to you both... was not aware my present phone would work in France, Spain etc.

this business about the cost of receiving voicemail in Europe seems pretty silly to me... don't suppose anyone knows if any Europe-based phone operators operate a more reasonable system? I find it difficult to believe people living around the French/German/Swiss/Italian border areas (for example) are constantly paying 90p or more to receive voicemail when they travel about outside their base country... but maybe they are... hmmm

Mike Rodent