Great Cheap Local Sim Card Hunt

fazz · 28 July 2005 at 4:43PM

Country Visited:Singapore
Make of Sim:M1
Cost of Sim:S$30 (approx)
Ease to obtain: Many of the news vendors outside MRT stations
Cost of calls: Use in conjunction with a S$10 M8 Calling card also obtained o/s MRT's, I never had to top up my M1 sim, hundreds of minutes using the M8.

pab1951 · 28 July 2005 at 5:01PM

In Brazil I have purchased a couple of SIM cards for use on the TIM network. Some operators are reluctant to sell to foreigners but I have had no major problem with TIM. Be careful of the various price plans as some SIM's have a monthly subscription, use it or not but with lower per minute prices. Also be aware that if you in one state and receive a call from another state you end up paying part of the call charge as per internatiopnal calls received whilst in Europe. As near as I can remember the SIM cost about R$30 which at the time was about £6. TIM coverage is good in all areas that I have visited, mainly the states of Rio, Espirito Santo and Bahia.

Ian_W_7 · 28 July 2005 at 5:04PM

Edinburghlass wrote:

Obviously it depends on what country you would be visiting but if its for a popular destination all the shops and markets would be able to sell you a local sim with no language problems.

The main thing to realise if you do buy via a company like 0044 is the sim must not be used or put into the phone in the UK but wait until you have reached your destination.

Thanks - need to get one for France so will be watching this thread with interest. If anyone has suggestions for France it would be appreciated.

chris_k · 28 July 2005 at 5:58PM

Thailand - Orange, https://www.orange.co.th

I have had an email back from their customer services department. They do a special SIM aimed at tourists.
500 Baht (£7) for the SIM including

400 Baht calling value, valid for 20 days
User Guide
Map of Bangkok
Tourist Guide
Free access to Tourist Police
Free calls to customer services

Calls in Thailand 3 Baht ( 4p) per min (charged per second with a min of 30 sec)
Local texts 3 Baht (4p), international texts 6 baht (8p)
International calls - They appear to be operated by another company. They have differnet rates depending on what line quality you get (VoiP or not) - CAT001 I think is the standard high quality one.

United Kingdom CAT001 st=18 Bt, eco=18 Bt, reg=18 Bt /CAT009=7 Bt:min./CAT PhoneNet=6 Bt:min.

Anyway, the highest price is 24 p per minute charged per 6 seconds.

CAT Telecom Public Company Limited

Purchase from: Orange shops
or at the airport - Orange Shop, arrivals Hall 1, first floor

When I first started looking Donnie posted details of another provider:
Happy
He has given a prefix for that network which works out at 11p per minute.

If anyone wants the whole comprehensive email I recieved from Orange Thailand please PM me.

moana · 28 July 2005 at 6:22PM

Singapore M1 or Mobile 1.

Sims cost six pounds or ten pounds and are sometimes discounted or extra minutes added.

Make sure you buy the one with free incoming calls. That's the usual one.

Calls cost 6p per minute outgoing.

IIRC.

robdog · 28 July 2005 at 7:18PM

When going to S.A. try to go to a shopping mall find a supermarket used by the locals and buy a local sim, it pays to shop around, last year i bought a vodacom sim for R50 [£5] it had R40 pre loaded and was priced at R158, if you go to a LARGE Spar shop you will find a dedicated mobile phone dept,[I can recomend the one in Hazyview]. Calls in SA are about R1 PM TEXT about R2 Just make sure your phone is unblocked and let your friends know your new number when you arrive

Unhban · 28 July 2005 at 8:31PM

Country Visited: Tunisia
Make of Sim: Tunisiana
Cost of Sim: Five Dinar (about £2.20)
Ease to obtain: In Sousse there were huge hoardings outside the shops that sold them (about four shops along the main street). I presume most major cities will sell them i.e. Tunis, Sfax, Gabes etc.
Cost of calls: as much details as you can) to UK - about 30p/minute (a little less than the International Call boxes - known as Taxiphones in Tunisia!). Local calls very cheap - several hundred millimes. 100 millimes = 4.25p)
Anything else that may be helpful: You must take your passport to obtain one, and fill out a form that includes your UK address. If a call is not made at any time over a period of three months your SIM becomes blocked and you must take your original form in, again along with your passport, for it to be re-authorised. I'm not sure if there is a fee for doing this. Top-up cards are sold in values of 5TD, 10TD and 20TD (£8.90). One tip: be careful of your mobile being stolen in Tunisia.... and the police don't want to know....

andy88_2 · 28 July 2005 at 8:49PM

2 networks - Orange and T-mobile (formerly Globtel and Eurotel).

Call charges are extremely similar on both networks, but the T-mobile SIM is cheaper, SKK 399 vs Orange's SKK 599, both with 300 credit. Exch rate SKK 58 = £1, so the T-mob SIM is £7.

2 or 3 network shops for each in a larger city. We bought 14 T-mob at their kiosk on the edge of Tesco hypermarket. Top-ups of SKK 200, 300, 500, 1000, 2000 available. I disagree with Ian_W again about buying in UK or there. The SIM came with a manual only in Slovakian, and the woman at the shop was helpful in English, which 0044 would not manage in Slovakian - we only needed to know how to check balance and top-up (call 12350 or *50, follow options) never mind WAP/GPRS or other complications etc. The first attempted call had activated the SIM, including setting menu language option.

16p peak to 7p off-peak T-mobile
25p all times other networks
int'l see below

http://www.orange.sk/
http://www.t-mobile.sk/
neither site has English for all pages; this is the T-mob tariff page
http://www.t-mobile.sk/sk/!pages.get?id=telefonovanie

Calls to UK and other EU are 50p per minute on both networks at peak times. Since return, I've discovered that T-mobile appears to have (I can't translate) a cheaper int'l option by using 33 instead of + or 00 - see tariff page above. Orange seems to have some cheap off-peak int'l rates. Roaming is possible, but is not ready-activated when new. I did not use the SIM internationally and the others did only sparingly. Instead I used a callback service with calls to UK at about 15p/minute.

pbolding · 28 July 2005 at 8:59PM

Country Visited: India, Karnataka
Make of Sim: Airtel
Cost of Sim: 99 rupees (no call credit with this) (75 rupees = 1 pound)
Ease to obtain: Requires proof of address in India, 1 passport photo, photocopy of passport (shop did this) (Proof of address can be an employment letter, not scrutinised.) Widely available.
Cost of calls: 661 rupees card gets 294 local minutes or around 20 to UK. Higher value cards are much better value for money. (Use of any Indian mobile in a different Indian state constitutes roaming so may be more expensive)
Do you know of a weblink to the tariff http://www.airtelworld.com/4/circle_vouchers.htm

andy88_2 · 28 July 2005 at 9:07PM

Having looked, I see that 0044 sell only 16 countries SIM cards, and only one network for each, not necessarily the best choice either (7p instead of 2p in Hong Kong), and are priced at twice or more times the indigenous cost. In USA for example you would get a phone as well from T-mobile for less than 0044's £50.

Great Cheap Local Sim Card Hunt

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