jcherney

Hi all,

My son will be doing a "study abroad" program in Oslo for 6 months. I'm trying to figure out which cell provider there will give me the best bang for the buck. He will be using it locally in Oslo (mostly), calling friends in Italy and England, and calling home (hopefully!) to his family in the US.

We have unlocked GSM phones that work there, and I've gone to the websites for Norway to compare per minute pricing, but can't read them!

Any suggestions you can make as to provider and plans that would somewhat fit his usage? Does any provider have unlimited usage like we have here in the States?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Jack

jason8612

One of my friends told me that telenor is the best, since its the biggest in Norway. Usually the best service

GUWonder

It will generally be cheaper for him to use some kind of VOIP set-up to call from Oslo to the US than to call the US from his cellphone. Is he going to have a laptop with him and internet access at his place of accomodation? Then VOIP provides even more cheap options for staying in touch with people in the US and for people to stay in touch with him than an overreliance on international calling to/from his cellphone.

Calls that he receives on his Norwegian cellphone number will be free to him in any event. But calling European cellphones from a landline (whether a landline in the US or Europe or elsewhere) is generally multiples more expensive than calling a landline.

Telenor is what I use around Norway. There are packages (including student packages) that provide better deals than most pay-as-you-go deals -- at least for calls within Norway. However, I'm not sure if those deals work for non-resident persons/entities there as well. [Telenor has -- or at least had -- some kind of unlimited calling package good for something. I just don't recall the details from back then. That said, it's still cheaper for him to make international calls from a landline, some kind of callback set-up or a VOIP set-up; and it'll be cheaper for you to call him on a landline or through a VOIP set-up. Just things to look into or consider.]

jcherney

Thanks. I've got a Skype account, just not sure how well it works from long distances and unknown broadband connections in Norway. We've tested the video Skype here in the States, and it works quite well.

Interesting possibilities with a student discount package. I'll have him look into that thru the school office.

I'm open to any and all suggestions! Thanks again.

Dubai Stu

I would look at prepaidgsm.net. They are a forum dedicated to prepaid issues and they have a section which lists most prepaid offers.

Another option you can do is buy a Norweigan phone number from http://www.didww.com. It will cost you $8 a month and you can program it to ring to your skype account or any voip phone number. I have a Shanghai China did running for my nephew hooked into a voip account where he can press 1 to get connected to his mother, 2 to get connected to his father, 3 to get connected to ....

Norway is one of the richest countries in Europe. They don't have censored internet. Don't presume that you need to buy everything he needs in the US. I would expect that there are Media Markt's in Norway.

I also wouldn't make assumptions about the quality of their internet one way or the other. My friend in Paris pays 29 euros a month for a high speed internet connection that blew the doors off my Time-Warner cable modem. My hotel room in Leiden, NL had a E1 which was downloaded a copy of Lost from iTunes in under 2 minutes. Once your son is on the ground, he will have a better idea of what other students are doing. In a country with deregulated communications, a prepaid phone card from a landline might give you the exact same rates as a voip.


Lastly, I'd urge you to consider buying your son a globalroaming sim. There are a number that have good rates throughout Europe:

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html

Part of the fun of going to school in Europe is to explore the continent on weekends and breaks. He wants something that will work inexpensively throughtout the rest of Europe. Most of these have free incoming calls throughout Europe.

If you have ATT's calladvantage service in the US, incoming calls to United Mobile's offering will only cost you US$0.10 a minute. I have United Mobile's SIM and have a US 800 number from callbackworld.com permanently forwarded to the number. It costs me $0.14 a minute to receive incoming calls anywhere in Western Europe and in most of the Middle East. I also pay $12 a year for that number.

osamede

If he is there for only six months he will probably have use a pre-paid SIM card rather than be able to get a monthly contract, since those usually run for a minimum of 12 months. Either one will have free incoming calls - that is standard there. So an "unlimited plan" is irrelevant since all mobile phones there effectively have unlimited free incoming calls as as of right.

I'm not sure want to buy a global roaming SIM, since even a local prepaid SIM bought in Norway will give him better rates anyway AND those free incoming calls. In fact I think on some Norwegian networks you can use the phone in Sweden on exact same rates as in Norway - and no dodgy connection charges either. Rates in rest of Europe will be fine. Remember also that SMS/text messaging is what he will really use the most - that is what people of that age group do and more so in Europe - so I think you are best off getting the best local solution rather than a solution geared towared voice-focused business travellers.

VOIP is an option, but something else he should look into is the growing number of services that have a local Norwegian access number to which he can call at standard rates - those then access a cheap intl calling system with a pre-paid code he would buy. These were relativley new and popular over there when I moved away from Oslo at the end of 2004.

A couple of places to ask about the latest scoop is the dinside.no or hardware.no forums.

But to be honest, if he is a university study abroad program, not only will his co-students know the best info - broke students know every inch of haow to spare money - but also the school itself normally has an info pack on all this for incoming students.

So dont buy him any global roaming SIM in the US and dont commit to any plans or services before he gets there. The only thing he SHOULD do is buy any hardare he will want before he goes over eg an unlocked GSM triband phone or VOIP hardare or computer hardware. The prices for those are usurious because not only is norway a very high income country but they levy like 25% sales tax on everything.

Any phone is fine, unlike the USA, Norwegian GSM networks are comperehensive and have good capacity, so he will get a better signal in the woods of Norway than he would on Cingular in the middle of downtown Manhattan. Not kidding. So no need to agonize over which phone has better reception - they all will do fine over there

So buy hardware before he goes, but leave the rest open.