Mobile phone options for 2009
 

I don't know how much I should depend on what's posted in past threads, because technology/price plans/etc. may have changed too much for earlier advice to be relevant.

My question is: What are the best options for mobile phone usage in UK/Europe right now?

Background: We are going to England for 10 days in June. Our party will consist of DH and I, our two girls (4 and 2), and my ILs. It is quite possible that DD1 will go off exploring with my ILs, while DD2 stays with DH and I. So we really want to have two phones. We already own one unlocked GSM phone that we buy SIM cards for upon arrival. (Have used this for trips to Ireland, UK, and Italy; hopefully I'll be able to find the SIM card we bought in the UK to top up.)

My gut says we should just buy another unlocked GSM phone off of eBay, like we did a few years ago. Especially since we want to be able to call each other cheaply. I'm thinking Mobal (is that still around anymore?) would be more expensive, if we want to call more than a couple of times a day.

What about renting a cellphone from the rental car company? Or from Verizon (our home wireless provider)? Are either of those reasonable options, or does it just make sense to buy a second unlocked phone. FWIW, we will probably continue to take trips with the ILs... they are great traveing companions, love the time spent with our girls, and it makes our trips a little more like a vacation. :)

I would go with the eBay phone. I have a Mobal and it is expensive. I also have a Vodafone Ireland and it is also expensive. The best deal I got was on a cheap, older blackberry and a SIM card. The blackberry died after a couple of trips, but it paid for itself.

Your gut reaction is probably correct.....

For this summer, you might consider vodafone.uk....if you go to their web site, you can have free (like in free) sim cards sent to your hotel...

Vodafone UK for this summer at least:

5p/minute to call the USA (and Canada)

20p/minute to call any other UK number (landline or mobile)

Free reception of calls throughout all of the eu (if you sign up for vodafone UK passport).

If you want to have the UK numbers and sim cards before you leave, you can buy vodafone UK sim cards off of ebay by doing a search and looking hard for less than $5 including shipping to the USA...there is still time to have this done

or

You can wait till you get to the UK, no great problem here, pop into any UK mobile phone store buy the cheapest gsm phone along with a vodafone uk sim card....it will probably be locked to vodafone UK but the phone will be very cheap (and you can have it unlocked later)...in the stores they do "sell" vodafone UK sim cards for free but require a 10 quid initial top up...no big problem for the time you will be using it.....I don't see anybody undercutting this offer, at least for this summer and after all, it's hard to beat free (although remember people calling you from home, assuming it's the USA, will pay a surcharge for calls to your UK cell phone)....

Another suggestion is lebara I think it's called...check out their web site...they have 4p/minute to the USA and I think also free lebara to lebara calls. Again the sim cards are available for not too much on ebay and while lebara is an mvno they might not be as reaadilly available in mobile phone stores or they may be, I just don't know. If you pop over, say to France however, youwon't get the free roaming in Europe with lebara you do with vodafone UK for this summer.

You can also order Lebara SIM in advance for delivery to your home - mine took about a week to arrive. Also bought one for a second phone at a London Phones4U store (they are everywhere). www.lebara.com Rates when used outside UK are not as cheap as if you use a card from the country you are in, but better then US carriers international rates.

I am going the Lebara route for our family of four. I have two unlocked phones from us, and I borrowed two from a friend who travels a lot. I chose them because of the free calls between Lebara SIMS. No worrying about tracking minutes!

I thought about pre-buying the Lebara SIMS but....online you can only use a UK credit card, and by he time I get done buying them cheap on ebay I may as well buy them at a retail store in the UK.

My plan will be to buy four SIMS with 5 pound airtime each, and to use up each phone's airtime as I need to call home or other UK phones.

Seamus, can you confirm that I can pick up 5 pound SIMS with airtime 'everywhere' - Phones4U, carphonewarehouse, Sainsbury, Tesco?

Good Choice!

Feldie: <<Seamus, can you confirm that I can pick up 5 pound SIMS with airtime 'everywhere' - Phones4U, carphonewarehouse, Sainsbury, Tesco?>>

No, I can't confirm that same deal is available in the stores - as xyz123 noted above often the retailers only sell them with a top up of 10 pounds added.
I had no problem ordering online, not sure what problem you are encountering. The section where you enter your card number says "UK Maestro/Solo only" in reference to the field for the Issue Number. If using a US card, just leave it blank. Did you notice in the Cardholder Info and Delivery Info sections there is a drop down menu to choose one's country?

Thank you all for the replies. I will look into getting a cheap unlocked phone off eBay, and investigate the different plans. And it never occurred to me to order the SIM card and have it shipped here. I will definitely do that, as from the airport we are headed directly to our cottage rental outside a small village in Kent. I don't think we'll find SIM cards quite as readily there as we would in London.

Just for the record, I tried to order the lebara card using my US credit card and could not complete the transaction even though I kept changing the card...maybe the authorization system was down that day eh.

Seamus - Ah thanks but dang.

On this website: https://in.lebara.com/GBRStore/MPI/MobileTopup.aspx

The following text appears: '• Please note: you must have a UK issued Credit / Debit Card to top-up online' so I may have to buy top-ups in a store if I need to.

xyz123, hmmmm. I'll try later. I have the unlock codes for my phones but I haven't done the deed yet; I want to make sure I can do so before I invest the $$$. Stay tuned.

(Any other Londoners willing to stop by a few stores and check whats available? Pretty Please?)

If you have the unlock codes, you might as well unlock the phone. No harm can be done as to using the phone with your regular sim card....it would be embarassing to wait to unlock the phones and discover it's the wrong code (it happens!)

xyz123: done. all OK. whew. Now I have an email into Lebara about buying four SIMS at a time, one for each member of our family per their terms and conditions.

I called Lebara instead of waiting for an email.

They only allow four SIMS per person to prevent abuse, so the rep recommended I buy two in my name, two in hubby's name. Same address/credit card no problem.

They said it would take up to two weeks to get to the States. I found that my Ceremony of the Keys and Shakespeare tickets took a week. I'm leaving on June 20th so I think I'm OK.

A SIM alone for 2.99 would not work even as a Lebara to Lebara call - it must have some air time on it. The rep told me all retail stores are different in what they offer, so I decided to just buy online, one less thing to worry about.

Lebara website let me put through four transactions, on my credit card (I grabbed the wrong one, 3%, arrrggggh oh well), no problem. I had asked on the phone if they wished to take my order for all four at one time to save them postage (he didn't understand that! What is British for mail? LOL) but he said to just go ahead, no problem, they will come in separate envelopes. Its probably more airtime than I need, but I'll just use up one phone and move to the next, and if there is anything left over I'll sell it on ebay if I can't find a friend who is going.

So we'll see. I'll post back when they arrive - should I start a new thread?

Typo I meant they only allow three SIMS per person

British for mail is post....I'll post it to you within a day instead of US I'll mail it to you in a day or two.

Glad to hear you could use your cc to buy the sim cards.

God work, Feldie. Min arrive via UK post in about a week, so you should be just fine. Do report back about how it all worked out for you.

I received two of the four SIMS in today's post (not mail! I'm learning!). The two were packed in one envelope; I don't know why they couldn't fit in the other two. Nervous....

The post mark indicated they were mailed from London to the Left Coast of the US on June 2nd. Two days to get here. Watch for the next two....

Checking in to report that after sweating bullets for a few days, the other two SIM cards got here yesterday. Both packages were mailed on June 2nd, go figure. Now to program all the phones with each other's numbers!

Wait...how does one dial mobile to mobile... our phone #s
are 07551-XXX-XXX. Thanks!

Store all the numbers on your phone as +countrycodenumber (remove leading zero) so for example, it will be +447551-XXX-XXX

Once you're in the Uk you can just dial 07551-XXX-XXX.