using my mobile in australia!!

sam1970

I am going to australia in 3 weeks for a short trip and i would like to use my mobile phone over there to contact people in australia and for my family to call me from uk. i did a bit of search and it sounds that my best option is to buy an oz sim card ( pay as you go). my questions are:

1- is it cheaper to buy it in australia or shall i buy it inthe uk and from who?

2- my phone is samsung F700 on vodafone...i tried to insert 3 simcard in it and it worked..does that mean it is unlocked and it will work with oz simcards.

any help will be much appreciated

KiKi

I've just done exactly the same research (see my post below).

Two deals - one with Martin's recommendation with Sim4Travel (follow *Martin's* link from the article under 'Mobiles') - £8.49 for £10 credit or £14.99 for £20 credit. Credit expires in 9 months. Calls to Aus and UK are 49p minute.

On the other hand, if you're likely to make a lot of calls, Go-SIM have a deal for £50 which gives you £50 credit with no expiry. Calls to Aus and UK are 25p minute. As there's no expiry, you can keep this and use as needed.

I'm getting the £50 one as I go away quite a lot, and always incur huge bills from O2 - £1.30 to receive a call! Outrageous!

HTH you.

KiKi

sam1970

thank you kiki...is it not better to buy from 0044 (£30 with $30 credit) and you call australia and uk for 17p/min and incoming calls free!!

KiKi

That £30 gives you only £13 of credit. So I don't think it's a good deal. The others are free SIMs with much higher credit for the money paid.

Also, that was the first one I saw when I compared on the OneCompare site. However, when you actually go to the 0044 site, those are not the prices quoted...they're substantially higher. 17p is to the UK. But Aus calls are 37p.

If you compare like for like, assuming you paid £30 for either service, then the best deal in terms of value for money then 0044 would be last of those three. Go-SIM would give you 120 minutes for £30 quid, Sim4Travel would give you 81.6 minutes for £30 quid, and 0044 would give you 35 mins to Aus phones or 76 mins to UK phones for £30.

All of them accept incoming calls for free.

HTH
KiKi

before_hollywood

might be worth googling optus or telstra, they are the biggest australian networks incase they have an international calling prepay plan, thought with the number of brits already down under and loads more going they might have thought of that?

and yes, your phone is unlocked and accepts 3g sims, so you have the choice of pretty much anything

KiKi

Optus and Telstra both charge more than an international SIM to call internationally. Plus, you'd have to get a SIM from them once you get to Aus, which means logging onto the internet, ordering and having one delivered. They don't offer a short-term option. Also, that means you're restricted to Aus only in terms of using your phone, unless you pay much higher fees elsewhere.

KiKi

sam1970

i checked go-sim web site and the global sim car for £30 will come with only £5 credit...how can that be better than 0044 considering that i will mainly call the uk

sam1970

i have been checking the offer on sim4travel which sounds good (£15 with £20 credit) but i have noticed that the number of the card will be a uk number starting with 0044.....now my question is can the family in the uk call me on that number for free from their mobile inclusive minutes....sim4travel customer service guy was not sure as he said the number will be on jersey network and might be charged differently by uk networks...this could be a problem as i am saving on recieving calls in australia but i will end paying the bill in the uk for my wife's and daughter's phones!!!!

balt

I usually buy a Vodafone sim when I get to OZ it costs A$2 and a top up for A$18 from Woolworths and some other stores. There are various ways to use it so check out the booklet before registration. There are also very cheap phone cards for calling home I think the GPS card costs A$10 for 600 mins to the UK, got my last one for A£8.5 from a corner shop.

KiKi

Sam - I was referring to the £50 for £50 deal in my post with Go-SIM, and I explained why the 0044 is still not as good as the Sim4Travel in my post.

The cost isn't the same as to any other +44 number. After all, if you took your current mobile with its current number to Australia, and someone called it, they'd still pay international charges despite the fact that they're calling a British number - the fact that it's +44 is completely irrelevant. It's the network they're calling that matters.

The only people who can tell you if your wife and daughter can call you for free are their mobile phone operators. It depends what's in their tariff; it's got nothing to do with Sim4Travel, or what your number is. If their tariff doesn't allow them to make international calls as part of their inclusive minutes, then yes, you'll be paying for their bills to call you.

You could set up a gateway number, but I don't think that can be done as effectively on mobiles as it does on a home phone. Still, it would save a lot of money if they're going to call you a lot, so worth considering.

KiKi

SnowWhiterThanWhite

If you're already with Vodafone, can you use their passport service?

http://www.abroad.vodafone.co.uk/index.cfm?do=cost.passport

It costs 75p connection fee, then I believe you can talk for free for 1 hour (out of your inclusive minutes, or pay your usual UK rate)

The service is available in Australia.


With Vodafone Passport you can use your mobile abroad as often as you like. Whether you're a pay monthly or pay as you talk customer* you just pay a 75p connection fee each time you make a call and, after that, you're charged at your usual home tariff. You can even use any inclusive minutes your have in your bundle.
A ten minute call home can now cost you as little as 75p
Let's say you're a pay monthly customer with ten or more inclusive minutes still left on your plan, you can make a ten minute call to the UK from Spain and the call will only cost you 75p. The same applies to pay as you talk customers with voice pack minutes.
If you don't have any minutes left, don't worry. Once you've paid your 75p connection fee, you can chat away as though you're at home, knowing that the rest of the call is at your usual UK tariff.
Because we like things simple, we've kept the same connection fee for incoming calls. All you pay is 75p per call.


HTH