UK Mobile to UK Mobile, where one of you is abroad?!?

WingChun_2

Does anyone know of the best way to save call costs when ringing each other, but say when one of you is on holiday or business abroad??

My partner is currently in France and I am often on the road, so we only really have the option to ring each other on our mobiles. This is knowingly becoming very expensive and I wondered if there was a number that she could dial before ringing my phone number whilst she is in France. I know the easiest way would be to buy a local sim card, but this , means she would have to unlock her phone and (a) this invalidates the warranty (phone is only 3 months old) and (2) she is not that technical (i.e. I would spend more on calling her to explain how to get the IMEI number etc and how to process the unlock code.) - So... Is there a cheaper option when the two phones belong to UK operators, but one is actually abroad and one remaining in the UK??

(apologies for any typo's)

Cheers

sjc_2

First off unlocking your phone does not invalidate the warranty.

Secondly what network are you on? I was recently in Spain both me and the Wife are on O2 now as part of my Contract Text Messages are included when abroad but it uses 4 Messages in stead of the Standard 1 in the UK. Calls to UK from Spain was 35p/Minute where as Calls received in Spain were 18p/Minute. Therefore I used to use texts a lot which are free to receive, but when we wanted to talk she would phone me, or I would text her asking her to call. Not free but nearly half the price of calling direct myself.

before_hollywood

price stays same for you, they pay to recieve.

which network and is it contract or payg?

suecoo66

My daughter works abroad on a cruise ship and we find the cheapest method for her is Sim4travel sim card placed in a phone. In certain countries she can receive calls free of charge. If we are texting her you can use your inclusive texts on O2 and Orange but not on T Mobile, not sure about Vodaphone or 3 etc.
They are currently selling for £15 which includes £20 credit, which is a good offer as last year they were about thirty quid with only £10 credit included.

suecoo66

Forgot to mention that if you get an unlock code from your network provider for £15 approx you wont invalidate your warranty on the phone. Some phones are also very difficult to unlock,we found this on our daughters phone ( Motorola K1)

redux

For a start, incoming calls are cheaper, as mentioned above, so it's better for you to call her back.

Cheaper roaming options than the standard Eurotariff are on 3, Vodafone Passport, and O2's My Europe Extra. If she isn't on one of these, it might be worth having a second phone (can you send her an unlocked old one?) and getting a payg SIM from one of these or one of the global SIMs.

Sim4travel mentioned and United Mobile have Jersey mobile numbers, while others such as Easyroam, Ekit, Geosim and GTsim have Isle of Man numbers. These come from some but not all networks' inclusive minutes, so let us know yours; if not, O2 My Europe Extra might be the thing to go for, £10 a month, then free incoming calls, 25p/min outgoing

WingChun_2

Well, we are both on T-Mobile.

Why do you say that unlocking the phone will not invalidate the warranty - surely if you change any device fom it's original state, it classes as being tampered with??

I understand that we can use an alternative Sim and maybe we'll try that, but I need to get her to pick one up locally. She is only there for another two weeks, but she does like to talk alot. :-)

I assume then, that there is no number I can ring that will enable me to use my inclusive minutes, even though I am not calling a French mobile, but a UK mobile that happens to be in France, if you get my drift? I know that services like that existed, but cannot seem to find one that works anymore.

Thank you to everybody for your replies, ... the sim4travel is something I was unaware of and it looks interesting. I was only hoping that I may be able to utilise some of our inclusive minutes without spending more money on top, or even find a route that would enable us to call via a much cheaper diverted (so to speak) route.

Cheers

WingChun_2

I forgot to answer... that we are both on TMobile Pay Monthly contracts. However, I also have a Blackberry that is on O2. Although, I'm not sure if that would be cheaper cross network?

jimbob_3

kind of similar question -

partner going cruising round the med for two weeks - they have orange contract and o2 payg, whereas i have o2 payg and orange payg.

because they are going to a number of different countries, albeit all in the eu, we are trying to find out the best option.

when we are apart we normally talk for a couple of hours a day and, even when we are together we send 20 - 30 texts!!

obviously we wont use that much when they are on board but just to give some idea of the normal usage.

Could anybody suggest the best option

thanks

Buzby

WingChun wrote: »

Well, we are both on T-Mobile.

Why do you say that unlocking the phone will not invalidate the warranty - surely if you change any device fom it's original state, it classes as being tampered with??
Cheers

The actual locking of the handset itself is borderline illegal. It is preventing you making the fullest use of the handset as designed, but the EU have not set up an enforcement regime because the customer is getting a limited benefit in return, a discounted handset. Therefore it is not illegal to have the handset unlocked to accept SIM cards it was designed to do, neither will a manuafacturer be able to assert that a warranty is invalidated because a networked 'locked' it to its own service.

As for the original query - of calling when one or other is abroad - for situations like this I use Skype's service 'Skype To Go'- which provides the best solution and saves money. You can add it yo your own Skype account if you already have one. Full details can be found here;

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/allfeatures/togo/

redux

jimbob wrote: »

kind of similar question -

partner going cruising round the med for two weeks - they have orange contract and o2 payg, whereas i have o2 payg and orange payg.

because they are going to a number of different countries, albeit all in the eu, we are trying to find out the best option.

when we are apart we normally talk for a couple of hours a day and, even when we are together we send 20 - 30 texts!!

obviously we wont use that much when they are on board but just to give some idea of the normal usage.

Could anybody suggest the best option

thanks

Get O2's My Europe Extra for the phone abroad. For £10 a month, this means incoming calls are free, outgoing 25p/min to anywhere in Europe.

And get O2's Your O2 Numbers on the phone at home. For £5 a month, calls to 10 favourite O2 numbers are free (up to 1000 minutes or texts a month fair use policy)

So if it's only for calls between you, and the person abroad could do a missed call and then the one at home call back, £15 a month could cover the lot

But you said cruising around. If you meant on a cruise ship, with its own mobile coverage, then this is expensive for roaming, about the same as satellite phones (which is how they're connected), so use only coverage coming from onshore networks.