roberto99
Nov 2, 05, 2:27 pm
I recently acquired 2 prepaid GSM sims for a trip to London. I thought that I’d share my experiences with the two companies.
About a year ago, I acquired a new (then) O2 sim kit with a phone that I purchased from an English ebay seller. Before this trip, I tried to register it and activate it for use in London last month. O2’s website acted as though the registration process was a success. They posted my £2.50 registration credit to my account. But I just couldn’t seem to login to my account. So I followed O2’s instructions for contacting their agents. I provided all of the typical info (name, address, cell phone number, etc) three times and kept getting the same stupid emails back from them telling me that they can’t find my account! I finally emailed back that they need to manually search for the account and finally got another URL to re-register through. Such a vile and unproductive experience!!
While shopping around, I found that O2 and Orange LOOKED like they charged about £0.19 per minute for calls to the USA. I liked that. Vodafone looked like they charged about 5 times as much. Even though Vodafone is the biggest there, I wanted to save money on cell calls.
Next I found an ebay seller selling preregistered Orange sims with £6 credit preloaded for about US$3.25 delivered. Much to my surprise, my sim arrived only 2 days after the seller airmailed it from England! It included a “top-up card” for me to add credit to the account through countless ATMS and merchants in England. The seller even linked the top-up card to my account so it was ready to go!
Next I tried to link my O2 top-up card to the O2 account. After countless attempts, O2 and I could NOT link it! GRRRRRR.
So on arrival at LHR, I call home with the O2 sim in my phone. But first, O2 wants to reconfigure my phone!!!! I just want to call home! Yes, the call went through, but I find out that they charged about £0.95 per minute!
After I switched over to the Orange sim, everything was smooth. No attempts to reconfigure my phone for me from Orange! I found that the calls to the USA were costing me about £0.19 per minute. And they apparently charge only fractional minutes after the first minute. So a call that lasts 1 minute and 5 seconds only costs about £0.20!
Summary:
I found that O2 was a major pain to deal with. O2’s per minute rates to USA are very high compared to Orange. Although I thought that O2’s network that uses both 900 and 1800 MHz would be superior, it didn’t seem to matter. Sure, O2 has thousnands and thousands of happy prepaid customers. O2 just didn't do it for me.
Orange was easy to deal with and the network was fine for me. I loved the cheap calls to the USA. I also loved to fractional billing, too. The clear winner in my tests. :)
One nice O2 touch:
O2 allows accounts that have low or zero balance to make 2 extra calls to recharge or make “alternate arrangements”. While I was in Belgium, I succeeded in making a call to the USA with the O2 sim, roaming on another network and from another country. Normally, this type of call would cost LD charges back to the UK plus the regular fees from the UK to the USA. But O2 connected the call for FREE since my balance was almost zero! Good show O2!
Next time, I might try Orange and Virgin UK (runs on the T-mobile UK network).
BTW, I have found a guy in London that will pre-register Orange sims, load any value, and airmail them to the USA. Payment via paypal. PM me if you want his email address or telephone number.
About a year ago, I acquired a new (then) O2 sim kit with a phone that I purchased from an English ebay seller. Before this trip, I tried to register it and activate it for use in London last month. O2’s website acted as though the registration process was a success. They posted my £2.50 registration credit to my account. But I just couldn’t seem to login to my account. So I followed O2’s instructions for contacting their agents. I provided all of the typical info (name, address, cell phone number, etc) three times and kept getting the same stupid emails back from them telling me that they can’t find my account! I finally emailed back that they need to manually search for the account and finally got another URL to re-register through. Such a vile and unproductive experience!!
While shopping around, I found that O2 and Orange LOOKED like they charged about £0.19 per minute for calls to the USA. I liked that. Vodafone looked like they charged about 5 times as much. Even though Vodafone is the biggest there, I wanted to save money on cell calls.
Next I found an ebay seller selling preregistered Orange sims with £6 credit preloaded for about US$3.25 delivered. Much to my surprise, my sim arrived only 2 days after the seller airmailed it from England! It included a “top-up card” for me to add credit to the account through countless ATMS and merchants in England. The seller even linked the top-up card to my account so it was ready to go!
Next I tried to link my O2 top-up card to the O2 account. After countless attempts, O2 and I could NOT link it! GRRRRRR.
So on arrival at LHR, I call home with the O2 sim in my phone. But first, O2 wants to reconfigure my phone!!!! I just want to call home! Yes, the call went through, but I find out that they charged about £0.95 per minute!
After I switched over to the Orange sim, everything was smooth. No attempts to reconfigure my phone for me from Orange! I found that the calls to the USA were costing me about £0.19 per minute. And they apparently charge only fractional minutes after the first minute. So a call that lasts 1 minute and 5 seconds only costs about £0.20!
Summary:
I found that O2 was a major pain to deal with. O2’s per minute rates to USA are very high compared to Orange. Although I thought that O2’s network that uses both 900 and 1800 MHz would be superior, it didn’t seem to matter. Sure, O2 has thousnands and thousands of happy prepaid customers. O2 just didn't do it for me.
Orange was easy to deal with and the network was fine for me. I loved the cheap calls to the USA. I also loved to fractional billing, too. The clear winner in my tests. :)
One nice O2 touch:
O2 allows accounts that have low or zero balance to make 2 extra calls to recharge or make “alternate arrangements”. While I was in Belgium, I succeeded in making a call to the USA with the O2 sim, roaming on another network and from another country. Normally, this type of call would cost LD charges back to the UK plus the regular fees from the UK to the USA. But O2 connected the call for FREE since my balance was almost zero! Good show O2!
Next time, I might try Orange and Virgin UK (runs on the T-mobile UK network).
BTW, I have found a guy in London that will pre-register Orange sims, load any value, and airmail them to the USA. Payment via paypal. PM me if you want his email address or telephone number.