Yep - that's me! Info should still be valid. I got a call this morning from the local car rental place (forgot go cancel a car reservation in Ljubljana - oops!). Installing Hangouts and making calls out is fairly easy. Setting up Google Voice to receive them is a little more work.

I would get Hangouts setup for outgoing calls first. Once you can do that, think about the Google Voice option for incoming.

FYI, Vodafone SIM is awesome. Has worked great in Italy and Slovenia - no surprises. 4G almost everywhere.

One thing I noticed, though: Google Hangouts is now charging for calling some 1-800 numbers (only 1 cent/min though). This may be new. I found out by accident - I have a 10 cent credit and when making some test calls noticed I was drawing it down by a penny each time. You have to add credit to Google Hangouts in $10 increments. Still free to call local US phone numbers (I did that a few times yesterday).

Hi Andrew and others, If I get the google Hangout all set up,(and I do have the APP downloaded now in the I phone Apple 7), when I put the Vodafone Sim card in the phone in July....do I have to redo the set up????? Thanks for all the help. This may work. Sue

No. If you get it to work here either with your us service or WiFi, it will work there. It works on data. Doesn't matter where the data comes from.

OK rs, I get it that I do not have to download the app again that is good. I want to make phone calls from Europe to the US, can I be sure that is going to work? I guess I have to be at a WiFi place, right? I am on Verizon here in the US, but will be on Vodafone/Sim card in europe. I am just not sure i have the settings all correct on my I phone/Apple 7. I am on google and have the google app downloaded. So I guess I should just try phoning someone on the googlehangout app. I know this sounds like I am pretty stupid, but a tad older and missed growing up with all this technology, but trying to catch up. Sue

You are just going to have to try it. I have never used hangouts as a phone in Europe but I use it here as my main phone.

There are 2 ways this can work.

(1) Both or all people you want to communicate with have Hangouts installed. Then , you are continuously linked through your Google accounts and can easily text, voice chat and video chat.

(2} Dial out like a phone to random people. For this you need the Hangouts dialer and an active data session, either WiFi or a good data signal (doesn't matter if the signal is from Verizon vodaphone or whatever)

rs. I think I can make calls to the US from Europe with the google hangout app, with Vodafone sim card, but don't think I can receive calls, except at great expense, which is ok, I just want to make the calls. If I am the only one making the call then the person receiving it would not need the hangout or google acct would they? I hope to call from my cell phone in Europe to a land line in the US, hopefully. Trying to check on a family member. Sue

Yes, if you call using the hangout dialer, they don't need the hangout app. I am not sure if this is free, but if not it will be very cheap on Google.It is free in the US and Canada, and goes over data so it should be free, but not sure.

Mind you, I have never tried this in Europe. Hopefully Andrew will check in and verify and elucidate.

If you install Google voice you will be able to receive calls and voicemail on your Google voice number.

It is still free to call/receive calls from/to Europe (although some 1-800 numbers may charge 1 cent per minute now.) I have made calls again today. However, I forgot about needing to add the US country code in front of phone numbers when calling the US from Europe. For some reason, I didn't need to do that last year using Hangouts when calling the US, and my calls weren't getting through on Hangouts because I wasn't adding the code. But I was using T-Mobile then. Maybe the fact that I have a Dutch SIM confuses Google.

In any event, this is an important tip: <u>you MUST add the country code prefix in front of any US phone number to call it.</u> For example, to call 202-555-1212 from Europe, you must add 001 in front first - so dial 001 202 555 1212.

Or with a mobile phone, you can abbreviate the 00 with a + (hold down the 0 key on your phone to get a plus). So you'd dial +1 202 555 1212.

So all of your contacts on your phone won't work unless you put a +1 in front of each of them. If you don't call many people, not a big pain to change a few contacts temporarily (or make temporary contacts that have just the same phone numbers but with +1 in front of each). Although there might be some app that can do this automatically, it may not work with Google Hangouts.

Again: you must add a +1 in front of US number to call them from Europe. (You might do this even if not using Google, actually.) And you'd have to add a country code (+ and a number) in front of numbers of other countries. If there's a + already in front of the number you're trying to dial, it already has the code and you don't need (want) to add it again.

OK Andrew the google hangouts is working in the US, I called and got thru on two calls. so now, do you think that Vodafone can transfer my phone list/directory of phone numbers, and will I be able to access it on Google hangout? I don't understand how to be able to access my list of names and phone numbers. As far as this +1 deal, can't I just put 001 on all calls to the US? I don't get this +1 deal that you are talking about, how about the 001 for US and the usual phone number to keep life simple, is that OK? Also, do I have to use wifi to make these calls to the US (remember that I really don't know what I am doing so keep it simple in telling me). Sue

Glad you got Hangouts working! Note that when you call someone, you'll hear a delayed "beep" that indicates that the other person has "joined" the call and then you can start talking. That is something I had to get used to: you can't start talking as soon as the other person seems to answer - they can't hear you until the "google beep" or whatever that sound is. Just something to get used to.

Google Hangouts on Android is able to access my phone contacts so I assume it can on iPhone also. If you can access the contacts now in the US, it will work the same in Europe. Vodafone or whatever SIM you have should have nothing to do with it. (It is true that you could - probably still can - save your contacts on the SIM card itself, but I don't think most people do that anymore with smart phones. They sync them on their internet accounts, so you can use them across different devices.)

You can try this experiment: turn off your iPhone, then remove the SIM, then turn it back on with no SIM card installed. Can you make a call with Google Hangouts, just on WiFI? (I can do this with an Android phone.) Can you see your contacts in Google? if so, then everything will work the same in Europe - except for the country code thing. The Vodafone SIM will have nothing to do with it.

If you want to put 001 in front of the phone number instead of +1, that's fine. + is just an abbreviation for 00 . Note that when you see many phone numbers in Europe, they'll have the + in front of them - it's kind of the standard now.

Just an update about my newly arrived NL SIM card ......

I received my NL Vodafone SIM, activated it, registered by creating a MyVodafone account and top-up 10 Euro with a credit card. Now I want to select a YOU L bundle, so I text "1GB aan" to 4000, but received a text back saying:
"Helaas, je kunt de IGB Blox nu niet aanzetten. Meer weten? Bel ons even op 1200 om een adviseur te spreken"

Google translation translated it to
"Unfortunately, you can not turn on the IGB Blox now. Knowing more? Call us at 1200 to speak to an advisor"

I guess that means I will have to wait till I am in Europe to turn on that bundle. Is that right?

Can I interject here. The Vodafone NL card is nice but do take a look at Vodafone uk (Vodafone.co.uk). They have cards even cheaper available for posting on ebay and you can easily digest the various bundles available. Also, unlike the other British telecoms, while you can't top up with a non UK credit card, you can use paypal (just watch they don't on paypal push dcc). Their big bundles and extras are very good, especially for data within Europe. And they're already more or less allowing use of data allowances on these bundles and/or extras as they call them throughout Europe and as of 11 June, there will be no roaming charges anywhere in Europe east of Russia including non eu countries such as Switzerland and Norway. The nicer thing about Vodafone UK is you can read the web site as it is in, surprisingly enough, English.

Another good UK sim card, available on ebay, is 3. Again, you can read about all the plans on three.co.uk. They already have roaming activated with a program called Feel at Home which covers all of the eu and even includes the USA. Their extra packages are called add ons and one has 12 gb of data and a couple of hundred minutes of calls. Now apparently these calls within this allowance have to be made to the UK but as I noted above I've hooked up with a firm called localphone which provides me with a US number I can program to ring to that sim anywhere in the world (receiving calls in Europe is free under these packages) and I set my cell phone (my only phone now) to forward to that US number which hands off to the European sim seamlessly. And they provide calling cards with a UK number so to call the USA once I leave the UK I ring that UK number (free under the allowance) and make the call at very very low rates. Seems to be a nice package. Unfortunately, while the 3 sim card is probably the cheapest sim card available on ebay, you cannot top up with a foreign credit card on their web site. Absurd like a £10 top up is something fraudsters will use. But in any event there is a workaround. It is called mobiletopup.co.uk. You can top up any British card there for a surcharge of £1.25. They do accept paypal and will e mail the top up code if you're not visiting the UK. The problem with 3, though, is you need a smartphone. It will not work in the UK nor I suppose elsewhere with 2g technology. But most people wanting to go in this direction would probably want these cards for the data capabilities and most likely have smartphone.

Personally I looked at Vodafone.NL and think the better deal is 3 UK followed by Vodafone UK. At least when they text me, I can read what they are saying!

Don't forget that if you use a European SIM card, there will be no more roaming charges for any telephone use within the EU starting on June 15.

I don't recall why I chose the Vodafone NL SIM over the Vodafone UK SIM. I did compare a couple of them but at some point, I was getting overwhelmed looking at all of the options and needed to order one to receive it in time for my trip. I seem to think I was worried about roaming, but I don't recall anymore. Maybe that will be moot in a couple of weeks anyway.

My fault. According to http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Euro8, I may text 'English' to 4000 to change my message to English. I'll do that first thing when I am in Europe, prior to text to activate my 1GB YOU S plan.
. for YOU S: text '1GB aan' to 4000
. for YOU M: text '2GB aan' to 4000
. for YOU L: text '3GB aan' to 4000

xyz123: your point is well taken, and I am glad you posted it here so that future users may have a wider option to consider. For me in this particular experience, between Andrew's instructions up thread and the instructions on the .../Euro8 website above, I was able to follow it through. A bit adventuresome, and only a small monetary loss if I could not make it work.

I just ordered a SIM for UK from Giffgaff. They seem to be happy to send it to the US , gratis, and I presume there must be a way to fund it with a US credit card or paypal.

https://www.giffgaff.com/freesim-international

Also, here is the same on eBay, ships from US, with 5 quid credit for a sawbuck.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-UK-PAYG-GI...3D172669979805

Giffgaff runs on O2 in UK. I don't know that their data rates are really cheap, but getting the sim and getting it activated SEEMS like it may be easy.

rs899...just to clarify, almost all the UK telecoms will not allow you to top up on their web site unless you have a credit card registered to a UK address. (they enforce thisby requiring the postal code for here the card is registered). I have never understood this idiocy and still don't as most top ups are for small amounts and if the top up is fraudulent they can always invalidate the credit. But it is what it is.

Vodafone UK is one of those but they do accept paypal so what is the sense in not simply directly honoring foreign cards. I buy £60 theatre tickets online with my cards without hassles. Why should a £10 top up be so precious they can't process USA based cards or anywhere else?

Giffgaff, if I'm not mistaken also require UK registered cards to top up online and they don't take paypal. Nor does 3. The workaround, as I suggested, is www.mobiletopup.co.uk. They do giffgaff. They do lebara. They do 3. They do EE. They do O2. There is a surcharge, I believe £1.25 for each top up code generated. They email you the code and you uust follow up.

My own research tells me that for a trip less than 30 days to Europe at this point, 3 might be the best idea with their add on as I remember you get 12gb for £20 and their payg rates are 3p/minute for calls, 2p/minute for texts and 1p/mb data. It takes a little research but the information is all there for the asking on the web sites and as I noted one good thing about the UK telecoms for us Americans (or Canadians or Aussies etc.) is the web site is in English unlike say Vodafone NL which I muddled through but is in Dutch.

woops. In my post several posts above, it should have said west of Russia.

Mea culpa.

"Giffgaff, if I'm not mistaken also require UK registered cards to top up online and they don't take paypal"

I don't know as I can't get far enough into giffgaffs website to try to fund anything.

But they certainly seem to encourage US buyers to get a free sim card.

When it shows up in a week (they say) I will attempt to fund it (though I am not really sure I even need it. I have a small pile of 3uk SIMs from freedompop that I think may be all I need).

I am tempted to invest a buck in the prefunded sim on ebay anyway. It looks like I can use the credit for 500 mb of data and it works in a phone or tablet.

Regarding the ebay giffgaff card with 5 pound credit on it, there is a catch...

FREE £5 CREDIT when you top up for the first time. Important Note: You must initially purchase at least £10 credit to activate your sim and receive the £5 free credit.
This is an ideal SIM card for travellers visiting the UK who want to have access to fast and cheap internet during their stay."

No doubt it's fine for the UK. The question is roaming inside Europe and I did look at the web site and there is no indication of just what will happen in the middle of June.

Isn't roaming the law of the land after 15 June, as long as UK is in?

Indeed yes but I think the way it's being implemented involves capping of calls and data and also they don't want to undermine any individual companies in any particular country so, just as an example, they have put in safeguards of some sort so that it is not advantageous for a French person to go for a UK sim because it is somewhat cheaper. Giffgaff web site does have some roaming rates; don't know if they are final or will be further adjusted next month.

It may be that you can activate Giffgaff from in the US:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopi...d_Kingdom.html

Post 11 on the second page and others have succeeded with US credit cards and Paypal (as well as mobiletopup.uk)

I don't know that I will bother to do this. For my trip, I will be in Paris for 7 days, then the UK for 5. If I have to buy any data, most likely I will need it in France. But having a free SIM card for UK can't hurt . Thinking....

After spending far too much time on this, I ordered a Three UK SIM card from the UK for about $2. It should be here in about 2 weeks.

xyz123 seems to be right... Three UK is very cheap. I could struggle with the 2 GB I think I already have that might be enough for 3 weeks, but might not. Three UK already offers free roaming in France (where I really need it ) and in the Netherlands. I can buy 12GB add-on for 20 quid and have data to burn for the whole trip.

OK ANDREW and others, I have been able to download the google hangout and call two people in the US, and I am in the US, so i guess it is working to use for calls from Europe to US. Now I will get the Sim card installed (ordered from Ebay/Vodafone in US) in Amnsterdam, hopefully at the Vodafone store. Now my question is.....will I lose my address book for emails when they install the Sim card nano? Any more tricky things I need to know about this....I got the county code thing, and phone is not locked on my Apple I phone 7. Thanks for all the info. Sue

No. Your address book is not on your SIM card. You can test this by removing your SIM and sending an email on WiFi.

If you have any time, take your new SIM and the phone to an Apple store before you depart for Europe. See if they can show you how to remove the SIM and replace it with the new one. And then try to activate the SIM. That may involve simply turning the phone on with the new SIM inserted. (Turn the phone off before changing SIMs.) If you get a "Welcome to the United States" text in Dutch from Vodafone, with (expensive) per-minute use rates, it's activated. Then turn off the phone and swap SIM cards again.

If there is some setting in the phone to roam, they can show you that at the Apple store too. I assume they will do this for free (never been to an Apple store or a "genius bar.").

The nano SIM size is tiny. Find something to put it in so it won't get lost and neither will your old SIM when you want to swap. I use little plastic cases for camera memory cards that are much bigger than the SIM but snap shut securely. You might find a ziplock bag to put that in - something too big to get lost easily. You may need a paper clip or something to pop the SIM out of an iPhone - put that in the bag too...

^^ Good advice. I haven't found a paper clip that works on an iPhone. You may need to buy a proprietory "special tool"

rs899...make sure you read the stuff on the 3 web site about making calls to North America while in the UK if that's what you might need to do.

I don't forsee a need to use the minutes or text at all back to the US as I use Hangouts. Just nice to have data.

Andrew, OK will try to get in to the Apple store, but I did buy the Apple phone I 7 at the Verizon store , and have service with Verizon, Thanks for the advice. Sue

I doubt the good folks at the Verizon store will want to show you how to use the Vodafone SIM, but I guess you could try. ;-)

Just Google "how to remove a sim card from iphone 7" you will see youtube videos demonstrating how to do that.

A final update to the long saga of my trying to activate my NL Vodafone SIM card's 1GB YOU bundle. I have been in Germany since yesterday.

It turned out I must text "YOU S aan" to 4000 to activate my 1GB small Bunuel, texting "1GB aan" did not work. Therefore, the correct way to do it is:

. for YOU S: text 'YOU S aan' to 4000
. for YOU M: text 'YOU M aan' to 4000
. for YOU L: text 'YOU L aan' to 4000

I did not have to text anything to activate my Vodafone "You" bundle. I activated it on Vodafones website with my My Vodafone account. I also have the Vodafone NL app on my phone (not easy to get if you aren't in the NL), and I could have activated it that way too.

One weird little quirk I noticed the other day: when I hit 800MB of data used, Vodafone texted me a message in Dutch waring me that they were warning me about "80% data limit reached." What?? I thought I had 3GB! (I bought the "You L" package with 3GB for 20 Euro for a month.)

Turns out Vodafone has some protection in place for people traveling out of the NL ("abroad") to not use too much data abraod. This is something else you can see in the app or in the My Vodafone account, but it looks related to a monthly amount spent, not data used. Still, it looked like if I hit 1GB, I'd reach my limit and it would shut me off.

But Vodafone lets you raise the data limit or even turn it off - so I just turned it off in the app (you can also text something to them to turn it off). If I were to go beyond my 3GB of data in a month, I'd be charged 10 Euro cents per MB of data, but it would come from any credit left in my account. I have only 5 Euro left in my account anyway, so that's all that I'd really risk. Maybe I'll keep the SIM to use again next year and will use the 5 Euros next year or something, if I can keep it.

So the data limit is something to address, maybe not if you have only the 1GB "You" package though. I just blew past 1GB the other day in 11 days of use and I have only 6 more days left in Europe, so I'm going to have a lot left over. I could have easily gotten away with only the 2GB package, but it's nice not to have had to worry about all about my data usage.

For anyone going only to the UK, I got my free Giffgaff SIM in the mail, about a week from when I ordered it.

I activated it and got as close to funding it as I dared. It does look like it will take a US credit card directly as it wants the card number and wants "expiry date" which is not usually a UK feature (as well as accepting my zip code rather than postal code).

Their rates are OK for someone not needing much data or are staying in UK and want to hit the ground running:

https://www.giffgaff.com/sim-only-plans

For my needs, I am hoping to get and activate a Three UK SIM that allows a generous pile of data and can be used in the three countries I will be visiting - Netherlands, France and UK (and 39 others)

As mentioned above, I ordered a ThreeUK SIM card on ebay 10 days ago. I received it today and activated it from the US.

Copying from above discussion...


"Another good UK sim card, available on ebay, is 3. Again, you can read about all the plans on three.co.uk. They already have roaming activated with a program called Feel at Home which covers all of the eu and even includes the USA. Their extra packages are called add ons and one has 12 gb of data and a couple of hundred minutes of calls

Unfortunately, while the 3 sim card is probably the cheapest sim card available on ebay, you cannot top up with a foreign credit card on their web site. Absurd like a £10 top up is something fraudsters will use. But in any event there is a workaround. It is called mobiletopup.co.uk. You can top up any British card there for a surcharge of £1.25. They do accept paypal and will e mail the top up code if you're not visiting the UK."


http://www.three.co.uk/Support/Top_Up


I went for the 12GB deal at 20 GBP

http://www.three.co.uk/feel-at-home/


The beauty of this is that it roams all over Europe and the US.

I can hit the ground running in Amsterdam, keep the phone running through France and the UK and even use what is left over from the 12 gig back here until the 30 days is over. I am using it now-
seems to be connected to T-mo. Another bonus is that it connects to wifi in the Underground.

I got it for the gobs of data for about $30. I don't know how useful it may be as a phone when you are roaming. I plan on using Hangouts for calling overseas.

I think this is a useful bit of kit for now, if you are going to be in Europe for 2-4 weeks. After 15 June, who knows? I am going to start a new thread and try to organize this better.

rs899...did you top up with the web site I suggested or perhaps you were able to top up on the British 3 web site.

Also I intend to top up with £25, get the add on for £20 and have the £5 left over for calls within the eu. Also part of the add on are calls back to the UK from European countries. I do have access to a local UK number for calling cards to call outside Europe during the 30 day period although the data is the key component.

One further detail...the top up mobile site has a surcharge totaling £2.98 for the £20 top up but they do take outside the UK credit cards and paypal.

Yes, I used mobiletopup.co.uk . Cost 1.49 GBP.

I looked around for other top up options but could not find anything else that would work.

Apart from the funding snag, the activation was a breeze. Three texted me a couple of setup apps (probabaly to set APN) or something that I clicked on. I got a My3 account just to be able to see what I was doing, but I don't think it was really necessary.