sim cards overseas

[jadeqld1123]

ladies & gents. i need some advise about purchasing and using a sim card in the UK. i'm told it is cheaper to ring Oz from o'seas country's if i purchase a sim card from the country we are visiting. any info would be greatly appreciated

regards

jadeqld:?:

 

[samh004]

Paging drewbles to this thread!

 

[Ewing]

Just get a simple calling SIM from ekit/Telestial. They come with a UK and US phone number so you can get it all organised before you go.

We purchased 3 last year for a trip to the US. It saved us a bundle for calling back home and also for calling each other.

On that note, I assume drewbles will find this thread soon so I'll add a question - do you know if you have micro sims coming?

-Shaun

 

[kingzac]

I bought an 02 prepaid SIM over there last year, when you activate it tell them you want the international calling and you get so many free minutes worth of calls to Aus with each recharge.

100 free extra minutes with each 15gbp recharge according to the site: International - O2

Full info: http://www.o2.co.uk/yourcountry

 

[simongr]

If we are making requests for sim cards - any thoughts on sim cards and micro sims (for the ipad) in India?

 

[jadeqld1123]

Just get a simple calling SIM from ekit/Telestial. They come with a UK and US phone number so you can get it all organised before you go.

We purchased 3 last year for a trip to the US. It saved us a bundle for calling back home and also for calling each other.

On that note, I assume drewbles will find this thread soon so I'll add a question - do you know if you have micro sims coming?

-Shaun

shaun thanks very much

jadeqld

 

[drewbles]

Just get a simple calling SIM from ekit/Telestial. They come with a UK and US phone number so you can get it all organised before you go.

We purchased 3 last year for a trip to the US. It saved us a bundle for calling back home and also for calling each other.

On that note, I assume drewbles will find this thread soon so I'll add a question - do you know if you have micro sims coming?

-Shaun

Sorry about my absence (Have been flying around a bit the last few days and only just got back on my feet here in the LOTFAP )

Micro SIM's have been ordered. We have only ordered a small batch of them, as iPhone 4 owners are still a very small number of our overall orders, but they're coming (and i've personally cut up a few for customers to send out using my trusty SIM slicer I bought online).

I'm biased so i'll always recommend our own product of course (to the point the competitors product on QF In flight Duty Free had sold out so I voiced up to the CSM who started pushing our product to pax instead and told them which airports here in the US they could buy them at!).

Check out Communication & Internet here for more info on SIM cards. I won't spam here with our product, but it's a safe bet to say I know a lot about the product that Ewing has mentioned (in fact, i'm in the LOTFAP for something related to it )

 

[Joshua]

One thing that could be mentioned for the UK in particular is customers of 'Three' in Australia have very low cost roaming in a few countries including the UK. Last used it a couple years ago I used it in HK and found it quite cost effective. Of course it will differ dependent on call usage and how long you're visiting for.

Link: 3 like Home

Not a well advertised feature and rates are no longer as great they were earlier in the decade but if you're not calling much and want the great convenience of keeping your regular number then it's worth a shout.

 

[drewbles]

One thing that could be mentioned for the UK in particular is customers of 'Three' in Australia have very low cost roaming in a few countries including the UK. Last used it a couple years ago I used it in HK and found it quite cost effective. Of course it will differ dependent on call usage and how long you're visiting for.

Link: 3 like Home

Not a well advertised feature and rates are no longer as great they were earlier in the decade but if you're not calling much and want the great convenience of keeping your regular number then it's worth a shout.

Be very careful with this one. Calls cost the same price as your rate but are not included in your cap, and most caps are around $0.40-0.60AUD per 30 seconds, plus a flag fall. This is how they let you use '$600 value for $30' type arrangement. Your calls are very expensive, but you get a lot of allowance.

The 3 like home will charge any calls you make at these rates in addition to your cap. It's convenient, but you'll often still fork out a lot more than you do using a 3rd party SIM provider that can provide you with global coverage, multiple numbers, and ways for people to call you without them incurring long distance charges.

 

[simongr]

Re 3 from home - I used it a lot in London/HKG for incoming calls - a great service. Just wish they had some similar data bundles

Just ordered a sim cutter myself ($20 on ebay - probably could find cheaper but $20 is pretty much nothing really) to see if I can get connected in India...

 

[jadeqld1123]

Is it really that hard

i'm not sure whether my 1st thread got published so i am repeated it..

i am reading a lot of scary stories about mobile phone bills after returning from an o'seas trip. not being a prepaid (mobile ph) user, i thought the easiest resolution would be to purchase a prepaid sim for the mobile in the counrty we are visiting. we are in the UK in dec and i have an iphone 4. any geedback would be graetfully received.

regards

jadqld:?:

 

[samh004]

Re: Is it really that hard

You did get some answers, so I guess the question would be, do you know if your phone is unlocked (so you can pop another SIM in it)?

Presuming it is unlocked, then what you’re suggesting is very simple, just make sure the shop knows you have an iPhone 4 as a smaller SIM card is required.

 

[jadeqld1123]

Re: Is it really that hard

thanks

i thought that would be the way to go. and yes my phone is unlocked

regards

jadeqld

 

[samh004]

Re: Is it really that hard

thanks

i thought that would be the way to go. and yes my phone is unlocked

Best bet would be to check out what the options are, how much calls and texts and data will cost, and who covers the area you’ll be spending your time in, as much like Australia some providers have better coverage in certain areas.

 

[NM]

Note I have moved the two threads in question to the appropriate forum and merged into a single thread.

 

[samh004]

Note I have moved the two threads in question to the appropriate forum and merged into a single thread.

Good idea, I didn’t even look to see where it was originally.

 

[prozac]

I was in the Netherlands earlier this year and purchased a pre-paid sim from Vodaphone for €7. It came with €10 credit. It is good to use throughout Europe. When I travel to europe again in a few months time i will just pop it back into my phone on arrival.

 

[sjholty]

Check out Mobi Passport (Do a google search). They have local SIM cards for a couple of overseas destinations (includes UK - O2) you can rent. Very easy and you will have the SIM before you depart. They have microSIMs and there is no problem using them with an unlocked iphone4.

 

[drewbles]

Pay-as-you-go consumers need a high degree of flexibility and control with their mobile finances, and with 3's pay-as-you-go SIM card, no other PAYG service can match the flexibility provided by 3. The SIM card itself is free and will grant the user access to Skype and Windows Live Messenger at no extra cost -provided that you are using a mobile phone that is not sim locked and is 3G compatible.Im using holidayphone.com Sim card for my International tour.

In which country? They certainly don't provide you free skype over a data network whilst roaming (That would be commercial suicide for them, especially with the rates for roaming data).

Keep in mind if you're using a SIM from holidayphone.com, you cannot receive SMS on the US number they give you (that they instruct you to 'forward' your landline/mobile to). This may be a deal breaker for some (there are a lot of companies out there now that give you a global SIM with 2/3/4 numbers on it, all of which can receive SMS, and you can just give these numbers out to your family and friends to use). It also appears as though they're just selling local SIM's and adding the forwarding service (eg the Australia one is an amaySIM pack, which you can get for $39.90/month unlimited everything except data here in AU, and has 2gb of data on it). They're charging $79.90USD!

If you're doing a 'world trip', holidayphone probably isn't the best solution from just looking at their website.

(footnote: I work for one of the companies that does do one SIM for all global roaming).

 

[Warks]

Just a note to update NZ travellers. I had no problem taking my SG2 (Telstra - not locked) to the Vodafone shop in AKL and for NZ$30 got a SIM put in with 1GB of data. The guy checked it all to make sure it was working and gave me a little envelope thing to put my Telstra SIM into. I mainly used the data for the GPS function on the phone - we were driving around the North Island for two weeks and it certainly came in cheaper than Navman's $A99 they wanted for NZ maps! The car GPS stayed at home.
I had my email running the whole time and did a little bit of surfing for tourist info but as I don't do Facebook I didn't waste data on that. I didn't check at the end how much data I had left but with a few days to go I'd only used 250MB. I think the data lasts for some time so I may get a chance to use it again.

After being totally reamed by Telstra on a previous visit where I turned data roaming on for about a total of three minutes and got charged $A40 I learnt my lesson. I did put my SIM in a couple of times to check my messages but had data roaming and packet data turned off the whole time.

By the way does anyone know the difference between packet data and data roaming? I noticed with the Vodafone SIM I only ever had packet data turned on and it worked fine.