Originally Posted by
dawk
The problem with this SIMs is that they never offer good rates compared to local prepaids. It might be good if you are only planning to stay for a day or two, but if you want to make frequent calls or use mobile Internet, local prepaid for each country is a way to go.
Also, cheap Chinese cellphone models might be an answer, they even offer quad-sim quad-band models. There is whole bunch of them on DealExtreme.
My concern with quad-sim phones is that there are four radios going in the phone. That can't be good for battery life. Also read the specs closely, often only one SIM slot supports all the frequencies. I've seen plenty which are quad band on SIM1 but only dual band on the remainder.
Roaming SIMs are clearly worse for data rates, but on voice rates the difference in price is often made up for by not having to purchase multiple SIMs. The classic ten day/seven city European vacation is a good example. If you pay $10 per SIM to buy your SIMs, you are probably cheaper with a roaming SIM. There is an Ebay vendor reselling eKit for $8 a SIM. Inbound is $0.19 a minute on the US number on their basic SIM. Outbound is around $0.40. If you are only make a few calls, eKit is a better deal. Then there is the issue of spending your vacation in seven mobile shops buying SIM cards.
I do both, but often find that roaming SIMs are a better deal. Now that the EU has lowered roaming rates, a Vodafone SIM with Data Passport service might be a better replacement.