europeannovice

Hello all, today's guest presentation is by European Novice's spouse. I'd like to offer my experience on preparing to bring my cell phone for use during our trip. Oh, and by the way, I've taken every effort to do so on the cheap.

Many people may not remember the time when there were landline surcharges on domestic cell phone calls and international calling was very expensive. Those days are long past, but your US phone carrier will still sock you with very high international roaming rates should you attempt to call home from Europe. If you're a penny-pincher like me, you'll need to follow several steps as I will outline.

First of all, if you are in the US, your whiz-bang GSM smart phone may include everything but the kitchen sink, but the important thing is to check that it has 3 or "quad" frequency bands, because the European frequencies are different than in the US. In Europe you will need 900 and/or 1800mhz. If your phone doesn't have these bands, you'll probably want to buy a cheap unlocked phone on ebay.

What does "unlocked" mean? If you bought your phone along with service from a cell carrier, the phone has almost certainly been locked to prevent you from defecting to another carrier and keeping the phone. Craftly folks that they are, cell carriers would like nothing more than to keep you hooked for life. But many carriers will provide you with the secret code to cell phone freedom without disrupting your service, if you play by certain rules.

At T-Mobile, for example, if you have maintained an active line for 90 days and you have recharged your minutes within 30 days, you may request a "subsidy unlock code" from customer service. I used their online chat and prefaced my request by noting that "I expect to travel internationally." You will provide several codes from your phone as they direct and if all goes well you should receive an email with the "magic" numbers. You will need to follow their directions to the letter, such as standing on one leg with your eyes closed humming the theme to Les Misérables while touching your nose alternately with your index fingers. In my case, there were several strings of random digits to enter into the phone, et voilà!, my phone is now free to roam.

Now that you have an unlocked phone, you will need to select a phone carrier with reasonable rates in the region to which you will travel and purchase a SIM card to replace the US carrier card in your phone while travelling. I selected Lebara for it's low rates to call the US from UK as well as low roaming rates in Europe. There are often promotions for a free SIM card, sometimes with minutes included! The catch: the Lebara account must be activated by making your first call in UK and I was to travel first to France, then England. On top of that, Lebara will only mail a SIM card to a UK address.

Luckily, I found that aerobile.com will send a SIM card to a US address and they will activate it a few days before your trip, noting that the cards expire if not used within 80 days. There is a bit of a premium for this service, about $10 with postage, but I found no cheaper alternative unless you have a friend in UK! I received my card in a few days.

Now, the second hitch (remember, I'm a cheapskate) was that Aerobile also charges a premium for top up minutes, known as "vouchers." Lebara vouchers are available for sale at hundreds of newsstands and convenience locations with no premium, but only in UK.

Lebara was at this time offering a promotion of £10 FREE call credit when you top up £30. However, you must have used a single £30 voucher, not a combination of smaller amounts. I was unable to locate an online vendor with this value that did not also require a UK address. In fact, it was quite difficult to find ANY vendor that would complete an order without a UK credit card.

Finally, I found eurocallingcards.com . They were pleasant to deal with, but you must follow these guidelines: You may register online at any time, however, your password must be reset by them before you may place an order. They seem to prefer voice calls to email, so you must find a time to call them (in London-remember, it's GMT) and request activation, after which they will ask to call you back for verification within a few minutes. Once verified, they will email your active password.

They accept Visa and Mastercard only. Now before you place an order, CONTACT THE FRAUD/SERVICE DEPARTMENT OF YOUR CARD ISSUER, and notify them that you are about to authorize a charge from UK. Your transaction will fail otherwise. I won't repeat in detail the comedy of errors that I unleashed by failing to do this, but suffice to say you'll be sorry if you don't.

Finally, I have my top up minutes ready to post onto my activated Lebara UK SIM card! We'll be leaving shortly on our trip. Hopefully, my cell phone adventure will be long forgotten by the time we return.

d_claude_bear

What you should do depends on how many minutes of sending/receiving calls you expect, which countries you will be in, and where you will call. We used Roam Simple SIM cards on our last two trips, once a French SIM when we would be only there, and more recently the Europe one, as we would be in both Italy and France.

In the past few months, they have started offering that card at no cost; once you pay the $15 for shipping from Canada, you pay only for the minutes you use. Adam is very easy to work with via e-mail.

http://www.roamsimple.com/products/R...-SIM-Card.aspx

avalon

I go on vacation to get away from phone calls!

nukesafe

Thanks, Claude, for the link to Roam Simple. I've been looking at others, like Ekit, but this one sounds easier and cheaper for my needs. We will use our phones mostly for calling each other when we are out separately, and want to change plans, etc.

ParisAmsterdam

Have a look at CallinEurope.com

Their rates appear to be lower and incoming calls are free. I've used them on 3 trips to Europe and there's never been a hitch...

Guenmai

I also use www.callineurope.com and am quite satisfied with them. The only reason I decided to even take a cell phone to Paris was due to elderly parents back home. I'm not a "cell phone" person unless I absolutely have to use it. Happy Travels!

girlonthego

i just purchased a mobal phone for our trip to england this summer. It cost 99 dollars and includes a 40 dollars worth of free calling. Incoming calls and text messages are free. Outgoing calls to the US are 1.50 per minute.

You only get charged when you use it.

I bought the phone to keep in touch with mother as my father is very ill. This will give her peace of mind to be able to call me once in while. I plan to teach her how to text.

djkbooks

Another recommendation for Call in Europe.

Seamus

Chiming in to say that I previously used Call in Europe on a few trips, but they have changed their requirements and are no longer as attractive an option. CIE now requires $20 usage (or a $20 fee) every three months to stay active.

BTW, I ordered and received my Lebara SIM from the States, arrived in 5 days or less.

djkbooks

<<CIE now requires $20 usage (or a $20 fee) every three months to stay active. >>

This is not new...all SIMs expire if you don't use them or top them off on a regular basis.

d_claude_bear

<<all SIMs expire if you don't use them or top them off on a regular basis.>>

I don't think that is true of the SIMs we got from Roam Simple. I think they are active for a year, unless you notify the company (RS) that you will no longer be using it. I'm not sure about that, as the situation has never occurred for us. And there is no "top them off" because you pay after-the-fact (via a credit card account) for minutes you have used.

ParisAmsterdam

d_claude_bear,

From Roam Simple's site:


"Keep the service for future travel. Service valid for 12 months (Option to renew service for an additional 12 months for only $9)"

CiE charges 29 for a SIM if yours expires but their per minute rates are generally lower so it's likely a wash cost wise between CiE and RS.

d_claude_bear

PA--That sounds like our understanding of how RS works. We didn't look for the lowest cost possible, and of couse didn't know how often we would use the phones, but were attracted by (1) their reputation for prompt, helpful customer service and (2) the arrangement by which you get billed to a credit card for actual usage rather than buying minutes in advance.

gailw

This is very helpful info. We're going to Portugal in October and just started thinking about what to do about a cellphone. Thanks a lot.

Sue878

I have T-Mobile and they just switched my phone to International calling, I didn't have to get a SIM card or do anything else. It cost me $1.00 a minute from London to Denver, but we don't use it very much except to check in at home.

We also took our Mobal phone (like girlonthego); which you only pay when you use it also.

turnip2

We are Verizon cell phone subscribers. Through Verizon I have rented a global cell phone, as none of our own cell-phones is a "global phone". The cost is $10 and the phone has to be returned within 30 days, Verizon provided a Fedex return label, so the return shipping is paid for.

My regular cell# will be switched to the rental phone when we activate it. Local calls in France will be 99c as well as calls to the U.S, since I also temporarily added the global calling plan for $5/month (which will be prorated for the actual # of days the phone stays activated). Without the global calling plan option the per-minute charge is higher. Incoming Text I believe is 5c, outgoing texts 50c.

For a shorter trip like ours this makes sence for us, also since we do not travel abroad very frequently and we only expect to use the phone for backup (not long conversations), this rental option is the most economical for us right now - (compared to buying our own new/used global phone and having it unlocked then using it with sim-card bought in local country)

Seamus

<i><<djkbooks on Jun 23, 10 at 9:53pm This is not new...all SIMs expire if you don't use them or top them off on a regular basis>></i>

This IS new for CIE - previously they only required minimum usage over a one year period to keep the SIM valid for that whole year. Now they do it by quarter and the cost is higher - even if you spend more than the effective $80 annual maintenance in one quarter you are still must pay at least $20 per for all other quarters.

They do still offer some nice features - like the Keep My Number option that lets you have calls to your mobile (home, too if you wish) phone automatically forwarded to your European number. It adds .10/day and .29/min for incoming forwarded calls but is still cheaper than the best option available from US carriers who charge at least .99/min for all incoming and outgoing calls.

For data usage on smartphones, .50 per day gets you a rate of .005/kb billed in 10kb increments or $~5/MB with CIE as opposed to .0195/kb with AT&T standard rate for international data use on smart phones. BUT if you buy the 24.99/month 20MB data add on the cost goes down to .0012/kb with AT&T (presuming you use the entire 20mb allotment) plus .005/kb for overage. By comparison, 20mb on CIE would run >$100.

I am leaning toward just sticking with AT&T, as when using my BB data rather than per minute voice charges are the concern, plus it just less hassle.

kenav

Also as a Verizon customer I was told that to use the cell phone to call/receive calls to/from France is $1.25 a minute with a free global phone mailed to us (since my phone, like turnips2's, isn't global).

Sounds a lot cheaper and easier than all that rigamarole explained at the top of this thread. I don't intend to use the phone unless really necessary.

turnip2

Yes kenav, that sounds about right, the rate is $1.25 per minute unless you also sign up for the global plan at $5/month. The Global plan rate will be prorated for the actual # of rented days so it comes out to about $5.00 / 30 = 17 cents per day, which will bring the per minute cost down to $0.99.

This cell-phone abroad option is easier if 1) you are already an existing Verizon customer and currently do not own a global phone, 2) do not travel abroad a whole lot so your need for a global phone is limited 3) Your trip duration is less than a month 4) do not expect to use a lot of minutes.

I briefly investigated getting the mobal phone - but for our immediate and limited needs I found nothing that could beat the Verizon option price-wise.

girlonthego

With the mobal phone, all incoming calls are free and so are incoming texts. Outgoing calls to the US are 1.50 per minute and outgoing texts are 80 cents per minute. Cost of the phone was 99 dollars and includes 40 dollars of toward first bill. Phone can stay dormant in the draw at home and used again on the next trip. There are no monthly or yearly costs. It activates again when you use it again. For 100 dollars essentially, it seemed like a good deal. We have verizon and i did not know that we could change over our phones. I looked all over our website and could not find any of the above info. The other thing was, I didn't want my kids texting from europe or using the phone as anything except an emergency tool or check in on my ill father. Also, DH can use the phone to get texts from work here and there.