alanR

In the UK they give SIMs away for nothing - I once had a dozen sitting in my drawerc- but they make their money on the charges especially for PAYG where the credit "expires" after a while

civicmon

Can probably buy foreign SIM cards on ebay as well.. that way, you can market-shop and see what others are paying. Just need to know the network names for where you're going to be.

jimbo99

This one won't roam (but of course you can still receive calls from anywhere whilst in the UK) - but if you are in the UK I would recommend MobileWorld:

http://www.talktalkmobile.co.uk/inde...d&page=tariffs

You can buy it from "Carphone Warehouse" - branches in most towns, and many railway stations.

I use it along side by UK phone as I often have to call Asia when on the move in the UK. I think it was GBP10 - and you get that back in airtime when you do your first top up of GBP10. (ie for GBP20 you get GBP20 of airtime and the SIM is free.)

Call to USA: 5p per minute (mobile/land line)

It does use some kind of VOIP. I had problems at first (when the service was first launched - and I was calling SE Asia) but recently its been excellent.

(Note to UK people: this network is based on the T-mobile network. If your phone is locked to T-mobile you can still use this SIM.)

ian_h

Check out www.moneysavingexpert.com he did a big article on the cheapest way to call while abroad a Liechtenstein sim card that worked out best because of the way they treat international call plans.

Failing that i've got a box of unused www.o2.co.uk pre-pay sim cards that can be registered to talkalot / talkalotmore / original tariffs and they have just announced discounted roaming rates as they operate in a lot of EU countries - I'd happily send you one if your interested just PM me.

The EU have a usefule price comparison site too here

Oh and finally dont forget to check out www.travellingconnect.com and earn FF miles while you talk (it only works while your outside the country your SIM is registered to and wouldnt work on Cing or any of the US networks)

Ian

lili

Thank you all for your help.

Today I received information from an ex-pat in Prague who says you cannot buy a stand-alone SIM there. For $49 you can get a phone and SIM. While the SIM will work in your GSM phone, the phone they force you to buy will ONLY accept the Czech SIM. So I guess for $49 you have a one-country SIM. Just proves Kafka rulez! All I want to do is call home, say I'm here, all's well.

Think I shall use the Cingular international roaming, which is about $1.50-$3.00 a min, not much different than what these buy-a-phone-and-a-sim-people want and they have $70 upfront fees and the numbers expire in 9 months yada, yada.

I'm sure I'm missing the whole point here, but for short visits to Europe 3-5 times a year it just doesn't seem worthwhile.

nmenaker

get a riiing card, now called United Mobil.

There is a good seller on ebay, look for call4t.

their prices are .39 euro a minute, incoming FREE and if you use a USA call back service you can get your per call per minute pricing to about .11$ a minute.

BDLORD

I second this, just bought one. Twenty pounds credit lasts for days.

Kagehitokiri

Another option >

AMEX PLAT holders can get a phone delivered and picked up for free, pay $3/day for rental, receive free incoming calls from anywhere while you're in the UK (you get a 1800 number for people in usa to call you with) and $30 worth of outgoing calls included.

I'm looking forward to this on my upcoming trip.

lili

Recap: Want to make a few calls in many countries while vacationing 3-5 times a year, have unlocked Blackberry.

Thank you all, have checked out all the links and think I may have forced my old-school mind over the techno barrier.

Looks Like Liechtenstein is the frontrunner, although rates are escalating.

Please critique my current possible plan:

Buy
SIM on eBAy from Call4T for $24.99 USD +$4 shipping.
ECO GSM International - Global GSM SIM card incl. 5 Euro Startbalance.
Europe - TOP Up Voucher 15 Euros available. The € 5 credit is worth about 12 minutes of outgoing calls in all the Area 1 countries.

This card must be used every 6 months to keep number and remaining minutes balance, and I think "use" is making a call or adding minutes. So I could place a very expensive call from US or something to keep it active -- unless I'm trying to use the Cingular 850-whatever service. How to get around this?

Add
Callback number since incoming calls are free. Seems like there will be a 7 cent per minute charge, plus maybe a connection fee. Any reliable company rec?

Add for the folks at home Something like GorillaMobile for family to use to reduce their calls to my Liechtenstein cell number ($1.99 on Cingular) to about 50 cents per minute. Any suggestions?

Disable
Will removing my current Cingular SIM temorarily shut down the account so expensive calls and voicemails are not forwarded to me?

marbles dad

I probably got ripped off and recently paid 40 euros for a French sim card. My old one ,still in the phone, was expired , and would not receive refills. Be careful when you buy refill minutes. make sure they are all voice and not part SMS- there are all different combinations and permutations available, and I ,again, bought SMS time by mistake that I didnt use.
I recently bought a yackiemobile sim card - it seems the most versatile and reasonable rates. forget using your daily mobile phone from the US from cingular - that is a ripoff. you can easily remove the sim card when you go aborad and replace it with a different sim card and the reverse when you get back.
lets all keep reporting our successes and failures !!!!

nmenaker

where did you find the 7 cents thing? I think the cheapest rate to the Lichtenstein number is callbackworld, and it is 11 cents.

but, you don't pay any fees for the card to receive in one of the free countries.

kykate

This works very well for us. We bought a phone in Vietnam, and top off the minutes whenever we are there. They say they expire, but so far that hasn't actually happened. Then, when we were in London, I simply took the phone to a store and got another SIM for that area, and bought minutes somewhere else. I didn't end up using them, but it was nice to know we had access in an emergency. Also, I felt free to call the US and know how much I was spending, since I'd paid up front.

I plan to take the phone to Australia, too, and see if I can get a new card and buy minutes there.

Kate
Kate

lili

Sorry, I was confusing the rates. I'm totally confused anyway. Have been reading that United Mobile etc. actually use callback numbers and thus a callback service won't work with (some of) them. Unless, of course, you carry two phones and apply magic and sprinkle one of them with eye of newt.

dtsm

Site that covers what's available worldwide, including costs, etc. etc.

nmenaker

uh, what?

UM works great with callback, rates to LH phones are about .11$ a minute in about 80 countries in the world.