sanjayporwal

Hi fellow travellers,

Which is the best and Cheapest way to keep in touch wiht home, a Mobile with roaming charges or a calling card?
Is it possible to get a local Cell SIM card?

thaanks,
Sanjay

xyz123

Cheapest...without a question phone cards but be aware of the following

1. Some hotels charge an arm and a leg (or just a leg) to access the networks you are using to trigger your call.

2. In my experience, in many parts of Europe with every ten year old kid walking around today with a mobile phone, just as in America, public phone booths are becoming harder and harder to find.

3. What about receiving calls...you have to give your entire itinerary to those who you wish to call and sometimes things change or if you are one of those who don't make plans in advance you know as you hit each new burgh you find a place to stay, how are people to reach you?

For convenience, although it can be a tad more expensive, I would take a mobile phone as the solution any day in the week and twice on Sunday!

isabel

xyz is the forum expert on these matters, he's helped me a lot in the past (thanks x)

But he left out a couple things. If you have an unlocked, quad band phone you can receive calls for free with a local SIM card, and local calls are cheap, but calling back to the US (or other continents) is more expensive. If you are going to be in more than one country, or if you plan to travel to Europe every year or so, I suggest a United Mobile (www.united-mobile.com) card. Works in something like 80 countries, incoming calls are free and local calls are .29. Overseas calls are more but I just have my family call me. I've had the same card for three trips and havn't used up the initial $45 yet.If you have a decent phone plan at home (I have Comcast) it's pretty cheap. On a recent three week trip my family called me at least every other day, talked for 20 or so minutes and the bill was about $13. If you don't, you can see if you can use 10-10-987 which is quite cheap.

If you are only going to one country and don't plan on returning to Europe anytime soon I'd wait till I got there and just buy a local SIM card for about $15.

nrwayne

I second the suggestion of United Mobile. Local SIM cards are cheaper, but if most of your cell phone use is incoming, United Mobile will be fine. Plus, they ship to you and save the time of hunting down local phone shops. For outgoing calls, we use calling cards from www.nobelcom.com. Works from most phones, except those that block toll-free numbers.

Robespierre

I know OP is asking about phones and cards, but <i>the very cheapest</i> way to keep in touch with home is yahoo.com/voice (requires a broadband internet connection and a computer). It costs $0 to set up and 0&cent; per minute. If the kids ring our computer and we don't answer, they send us an SMS (for free on our T-Mobile sub) to tell us they want to yak on yahoo. They can also send us status reports not requiring responses via SMS <font color="blue">@tmomail.net</font> (T-Mobile's email-to-SMS server).

If you don't have a phone with European bands (900/1800 mHz), here's an unlocked one at a decent price: telestial.com

tropicalkerry

Robespierre:

do you think the $49 phone is adequate? I was set to get it, then someone made me doubt whether such an inexpensive phone would be sufficient for calls from NA. Any thoughts appreciated, thanks.

sjj

I'm not Robespierre, but I think I can answer. Cell phone coverage in western Europe is really good, and I think the phone from telestial is adequate for calling. The problem is that you also have to take the sim card that comes with it. A better solution, in my opinion, is to buy an unlocked used gsm cell phone on ebay (Nokia 6610 is a good choice) and then follow isabel's advice.

xyz123

isabel...

You are aware that united mobile, because of the very high termination fees to call a Liechtenstein number, is in the process of recommending very strongly that cardholders of the +423 card (Liechtenstein) upgrade to a +44 (UK although Jersey not Great Britain) card...the promotion was supposed to end 31 July but I believe it is still going on...they will send a new +44 card for free...see their web site www.united-mobile.com

tropicalkerry

sjj:

just looked at the used nokis 6610 on ebay...costs almost as much as the telestial $49 when shipping is included, and i still have to get the SIM card.
what is wrong with the SIm card that comes with telestial?
I have a Nokia 6085, which I understand can be unloccked, but I have to take it to a certain place to have it done, and I have No idea how much unlocking costs. Rogers, my provider in Canada, does not perform this service. Then I still have to buy a SIM card.
So I just thought it might be simpler to buy the Telestial $49 package, and have everything I need, incl a universal charger. My daughter could then take the phone with her to Austalia.
I have read some neg reviews about Telastial, and how they overcharge for their SIM cards, but this just sounds like a neat package with everything I need...we will be in the countries where incoming calls are free, and we get 45 free minutes of incoming calls. That should be enough just for the kids to call evry 3 days to let me know all is well!
I appreciate any and all help with this decision.

Robespierre

See how this works for you: buy the Telestial, use up the included SIM, then buy local SIMs in the countries you visit - or a United Mobile SIM if it's cheaper.

xyz123

Some of the deals for &quot;passport&quot; on telestial aren't bad...where telestial is a total rip off is when you buy a local sim from them for the &quot;convenience&quot; of knowing your number in advance (doesn't always work that way) and in some cases, some countries are now requiring registration of prepaid sim cards before they are activated (not true of UK cards, but then again UK cards are so cheap, some are available for free) that some people have run into trouble dealing with them.

xyz123

The question though Robespierre and I don't have the answer, do you, is that the telestial phone might be (sim) locked...not that it's an insurmountable problem but may cause a bit of a extra work.

tropicalkerry

and would SIM locked mean you could only use SIMs purchased from Telestial?

sjj

tropicalkerrey, I was thinking of somebody who travels every few years to Europe, each time to a different country. For the case you're talking about, your solution sounds good.

xyz123

Yup....the phone is a cheap dual band (900/1800) which will most assuredly work throughout all of Europe and Australia...it may or may not be locked...also the number of countries with free incoming is very limited...if you're going to those countries it's not a big deal although there are excellent and much alternatives if you're going to the UK where with the right choice of sim card you can make calls to North America and Australia on a T Mobile UK sim card for as little as 3p/minute while in the UK with the free incoming (and you can get T Mobile UK sim cards for free very easily and pay only for calls you make) but it requires a tad more work...if going to France, it's probably a better alternative than French sim cards which are very very expensive, Italy is a toss up and I'm not really familiar with Spanish sim cards (never been to Spain and have no desire to go there)....

Most phones you buy on the internet are unlocked although you do have to be careful with the frequency issue.

United Mobile now provides a sim card with a +44 number and you get free incoming in over 80 countries and rates are far far cheaper than the rates for outgoing charged on passport lite (see www.united-mobile.com).

I really won't argue Robespierre's math that with $20 worth of calling credit, the phone costs $20...he is quite correct but how useful the phone is if it is locked is a debateable question but as a phone itself it is certainly adequate!

tropicalkerry

thanks everyone!!! I think I will find out how much it costs to unlock my phone, then may buy the united-mobile card if it works out cheaper. If not I'll go Telestial $49. Being in Europe fror 3.5 weeks, even if I never use the phone again, I'm paying &lt;$20/week to be able to hear from home...worth it to me!

Robespierre

Telestial's phone costs $49 plus shipping. That's not a bad deal even if there's only $10 worth of airtime at other vendors' prices.

The phone IS unlocked - it says so here: http://www.telestial.com/gsm_phones.php

tropicalkerry

robespierre:
thanks for doing some of my research for me!Appreciate your input, and again many thanks to everyone!

grandmere

I'm still wrestling with this issue, also. Ok: I buy a $49 Telestial phone, use the minutes that are provided, then buy a SIM card in France. How much will it cost me per minute to call home to USA with the French SIM in the Telestial phone? Thanks, anyone and everyone; not meaning to highjack this thread but hate to post yet another one about this.

xyz123

French mobile rates to the USA are high in the vicinity for the most part of $1/minute (although receiving calls while in France will be free) but there are 2 ways around it..

1. Open up an account with callbackworld which will lower calls using a French sim while in France to the USA to something like 28¢/minute

2. Getting a phone card which is triggered with a local French number (not necessarily a toll free French number)...I use bizon....in this case you pay for a French local call on the mobile (which isn't all that cheap BTW) and then a couple of cents per minute to reach the USA...the problem is that even if the call to the USA isn't completed, you pay the one minute charge for a local French call.

Rates on French sims are available on the operators section of www.prepaidgsm.net