BigFlyer

I bought a Toggle Mobile SIM for a recent trip to Spain. My plan was to use it for voice only, as I had a different phone and SIM I was planning on using for data.

I tested it before I left the US. I was able to receive free incoming call in the US on either the UK or Spanish number.

Interestingly, when you go online to add the non-UK numbers, it tells you to have your phone on. The reason is that it adds an IMSI (not sure exactly what that is) that corresponds to your selected country. I received an SMS immediately telling me that my IMSI update had been successful.

When I arrived in Spain, I turned it on, and made a phone call to the US. The call went through - except, instead of being charged the advertised 3p per minutes, I was charged considerably more.

Then followed a number of emails and callbacks from their customer care people. First problem - they are very difficult to understand. They all had very heavy South Asian accents. The were also all wrong. They told me that all I needed to do was to go to the place in the menu where one selects the GSM network and select a Spanish network. The idea that since I was in Spain I had to be on a Spanish network already seemed to be a concept that they did not understand.

I finally figured out the problem myself by accident. I put the SIM into an Android phone from the dumb phone where it had been. There was a SIM menu that showed up among the Android apps. From that menu, I could change the IMSI to Spain. There was a setting called "automatic", but I switched to "manual" and selected Spain. The phone then billed correctly, at 3p for calls to the US, and 3p to European landlines and 9p to European mobiles.

When I took the SIM from the Android phone and put it back in the dumb phone the setting stuck and I could still make calls at the 3p rate.

Fast forwarding a bit, we had a connection in AMS on the way back. I went online and updated with a Netherlands phone number. I switched the menu back to automatic. When we landed in AMS I was able to make calls at the lower price, so the failure to automatically select the Spanish IMSI in Spain might have been a fluke.

After the original hiccup, things were great. Outgoing and incoming calls were fine, and you can't beat 3p per minute to call the US from a European mobile phone.

For incoming calls, I forwarded my Sprint/Google Voice number to a number I have at localphone.com, which then forwarded to the Spanish Toggle number, at 8.9 US cents per minute.

So, all in all, I can recommend the SIM for travelling in the countries where they have local service. The rates for voice calls will in many cases be lower than what you could obtain with a local SIM. When comparing rates, it is important to note that unlike many discount MVNOs in Europe (including Lycamobile, which owns Toggle) there is no per call connection charge in addition to the per minute charge - a one minute call to the US will cost 3p.

I believe that Toggle will ship to the US (I bought mine from an ebay seller due to time constraints). The pricing seems to be £ value + £5.

If you order, make sure that you are ordering the UK card. There is a Dutch version which has less favorable rates.