Cell phone dialing for UK and Ireland
May 21st, 2007 | 08:19 PM
#1
Original Poster
Joined: Jun 2006
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Cell phone dialing for UK and Ireland
Hoping for some help for what I'm sure is a simple question, but I can't seem to search for just the right topic! For our upcoming (soon!) trip to the UK and Ireland, I have a Motorola V190 from eBay and a T-Mobile sim card (no credit yet - hoping topping up when we get there will be simple!). A couple of questions:
1) We'll be using the phone to call/text home to the US (hopefully rarely), call friends in the UK, and call our accommodations, etc. in UK AND Ireland. Obviously UK-to-UK numbers are pretty simple. But I can't figure out if we need to do anything to the phone to send and receive international calls. T-Mobile's web site confuses me, and I can't email them because I'm not registered with them (have to have a UK address). Should our phone be ready to go as soon as we put credit on it? Or do we need to talk to T-Mobile?
2) Would it be a better idea to buy a calling card in addition to the cell phone - so that, for example, we could call the card's UK number on our cell and get through to a US number? Or is that just more trouble than it's worth?
3) Would it be simpler to just get an Irish sim card when we get there? I'd love to keep the same number for our whole trip for our families, but if it's much simpler to do that, then that's fine.
Hopefully these are clearly worded and not completely inane! I thought I had this figured out, but reading a few more posts while trying to figuring out international dialing, then attempting to decipher the T-Mobile UK web site, have me all confused. Thank you!
1) We'll be using the phone to call/text home to the US (hopefully rarely), call friends in the UK, and call our accommodations, etc. in UK AND Ireland. Obviously UK-to-UK numbers are pretty simple. But I can't figure out if we need to do anything to the phone to send and receive international calls. T-Mobile's web site confuses me, and I can't email them because I'm not registered with them (have to have a UK address). Should our phone be ready to go as soon as we put credit on it? Or do we need to talk to T-Mobile?
2) Would it be a better idea to buy a calling card in addition to the cell phone - so that, for example, we could call the card's UK number on our cell and get through to a US number? Or is that just more trouble than it's worth?
3) Would it be simpler to just get an Irish sim card when we get there? I'd love to keep the same number for our whole trip for our families, but if it's much simpler to do that, then that's fine.
Hopefully these are clearly worded and not completely inane! I thought I had this figured out, but reading a few more posts while trying to figuring out international dialing, then attempting to decipher the T-Mobile UK web site, have me all confused. Thank you!
May 22nd, 2007 | 12:14 AM
#2
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 5,271
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I'll try to help you...
With the T Mobile UK sim card you will find a swipe card. When you arrive in the UK, go into most any chemist, convenience store or mobile phone store and tell the clerk you want to top up say for £10, give them the swipe card, they'll run it through their credit card terminal and pay the £10 with cash or credit card and voila done.
T Mobile UK has a nice bundle where for £2 you can buy 50 minutes of call time to the USA and Canada...read up about it at http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/personal/p...the-uk/bundles
It will tell you how to sign up for it with a text message or a phone call.
To call the USA from your mobile phone, nothing needs to be done. Once the phone registers on the T Mobile UK network, you will see its name on the screen. Simply add the + sign to the number...so to call 1 212 555 1212 in the USA (not that a call to that special number will go through) dial +12125551212...(note the + sign stands for the international calling code on all gsm phones although you can also dial the number using 00 instead of the + sign. The country code for the Irish Republic is 353 so if you want to call an Irish number while in the UK, remove the lead 0 and dial +353 followed by the number without any lead 0.
To call a UK number such as 020 7555 1212 while in the UK simply dial it as it's written using the lead zero...no need to dial with the UK prefix although the call will go through if you do (+44 20 7555 1212....or if yu're in the Irish Republic and call back to the UK you would dial using the +44 noted above).
Whether to buy an Irish sim or roam with the T Mobile UK sim card...you will have to do a little homework...I don't know the rates T Mobile UK charges to roam in the Irish Republic...if you're not making too many calls it might pay simply to roam with the UK sim card. As you note, it is indeed a pain to keep changing sim cards as the number changes. Also I am sure you are aware that if you are in Northern Ireland, you are still in the UK and the T Mobile UK sim card will work.
I hope it's not too wordy but I think I've covered it...the most important thing probably being the special on calls to the USA and Canada on T Mobile UK.
With the T Mobile UK sim card you will find a swipe card. When you arrive in the UK, go into most any chemist, convenience store or mobile phone store and tell the clerk you want to top up say for £10, give them the swipe card, they'll run it through their credit card terminal and pay the £10 with cash or credit card and voila done.
T Mobile UK has a nice bundle where for £2 you can buy 50 minutes of call time to the USA and Canada...read up about it at http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/personal/p...the-uk/bundles
It will tell you how to sign up for it with a text message or a phone call.
To call the USA from your mobile phone, nothing needs to be done. Once the phone registers on the T Mobile UK network, you will see its name on the screen. Simply add the + sign to the number...so to call 1 212 555 1212 in the USA (not that a call to that special number will go through) dial +12125551212...(note the + sign stands for the international calling code on all gsm phones although you can also dial the number using 00 instead of the + sign. The country code for the Irish Republic is 353 so if you want to call an Irish number while in the UK, remove the lead 0 and dial +353 followed by the number without any lead 0.
To call a UK number such as 020 7555 1212 while in the UK simply dial it as it's written using the lead zero...no need to dial with the UK prefix although the call will go through if you do (+44 20 7555 1212....or if yu're in the Irish Republic and call back to the UK you would dial using the +44 noted above).
Whether to buy an Irish sim or roam with the T Mobile UK sim card...you will have to do a little homework...I don't know the rates T Mobile UK charges to roam in the Irish Republic...if you're not making too many calls it might pay simply to roam with the UK sim card. As you note, it is indeed a pain to keep changing sim cards as the number changes. Also I am sure you are aware that if you are in Northern Ireland, you are still in the UK and the T Mobile UK sim card will work.
I hope it's not too wordy but I think I've covered it...the most important thing probably being the special on calls to the USA and Canada on T Mobile UK.
May 22nd, 2007 | 04:45 AM
#3
Original Poster
Joined: Jun 2006
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xyz - thank you so much. That does help a lot and answers most of my questions. Looks like T-Mobile's roaming charges in Ireland (and yes, we'll be in the Republic only) are 50p/minute, so with the small amount of calls we'll hopefully be making I think we'll just stick with the one sim.
The main thing that threw me off - and that I realized I failed to mention - is that on the T-Mobile web site it sounded as though we needed to call them and have a setting changed in order to be able to receive calls from the US. Do you know anything about that? We don't expect that to happen often, if at all - just in case of some emergency - but we do want to be able to do that. I had just never read anything about that here or anywhere else. Thanks again!
The main thing that threw me off - and that I realized I failed to mention - is that on the T-Mobile web site it sounded as though we needed to call them and have a setting changed in order to be able to receive calls from the US. Do you know anything about that? We don't expect that to happen often, if at all - just in case of some emergency - but we do want to be able to do that. I had just never read anything about that here or anywhere else. Thanks again!
May 22nd, 2007 | 05:38 AM
#4
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 5,271
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Nope you need do nothing to receive calls at all...receiving calls while in the UK will be free on your end...the caller will pay a surcharge on rates to the UK (or you pay them if you open up various forwading accounts; I forward calls from my home number to my UK mobile while in the UK and while rates to the UK on my ld plan are listed at 8¢/minute, there is a 22¢/minute surcharge for calls to UK mobiles which is pretty normal)...
