UK sim cards & per minute charges...
 

Can anyone explain to me how sim cards work? I want to buy a cell phone to use while traveling in the UK.
If I buy the sim card in the UK, does it come with a limited amount of minutes like telephone calling cards?

Also, what is a reasonable per minute rate to pay on calls in the UK to the UK and calls from the UK to USA?

Thanks in advance!

A sim card is a little chip that is the heart of gsm phones...it is inserted in a slot in the phone and it is the communication between the phone and the company who issued it...it sets the phone number, the company, allows you to store some info such as phone book entries (which also can be put into the phone's memory so you don't necessarily lose your phone book when you change sim cards)....to make the phone go from one company to another, you merely take one sim card out and insert another. There are other questions too regarding this such as whether the phone is locked to one company but that information is available elsewhere.

Recently we had a thread regarding the best UK sim card for use in both making domestic UK calls and calling the USA. This is one of those contests, at least today, where there is a number one and there is no number 2.

A reasonable price for calls to the USA is with T Mobile UK...they have a tie in with a company called yourcallworld (www.yourcallworld.com). Basically, the way it works instead of dialing a number in the USA directly, you dial their triggering number and then dial the USA number starting with the prefix 00 (001 212 555 1212) followed by # (absolutely not send).... the cost is 3p/minute (if you're not familiar with British currency, under today's exchange rate that's about 5.7 cents; calls within the UK are 15p/minute both to landlines and other networks. They also have some deals that you can research...Orange UK also has a pretty good deal where one of their sim packages costs 6p/minute, twice as much of course, but good in comparison to what other UK carriers charge on calls to the USA.

Robespierre in the last day has posted a link if you have a UK address (it could be your hotel if they'll hold mail), you can get 2 free T Mobile UK sim cards. Or if you go to ebay, you can purchase a UK sim card or two for less than $6, shipping included.

Many of the UK sim cards are free if you top up with an initial amount of £10 at phone stores.

The T Mobile UK free packages come with no airtime upon purchase. What they come with is what looks like a credit card. You take the credit card into most any phone store, drug store chain (Boots for example), any grocery chain (Testco for example), go to the cashier and bravelhy say, "I wish to top up my account for £5 (or more if you wish); there's an excellent chance the cashier will understand you as American and English are very closely related languages (however, that is changing as I have run into some clerks in London recently who speak hardly any English but that's another story), the clerk will swipe the card through the terminal much like a credit card, you pay your £5 (most of these places take credit cards) and you're in business.

Other advantages of the T Mobile UK card are it doesn't expire as long as you do something every 6 months (like sending a text message) so you can keep the number for future trips to the UK, T Mobile UK subscribes to the eu cap on roaming charges so it can be used although you lose the free reception of calls throughout the eu at reasonable rates (19p/minute to receive a call within the eu).

As long as you have an unlocked gsm phone, it's the best deal by far available for calls within both the UK and to the USA.

luveuropa...

Inconvenient and expensive to top up?

Sorry, not so at least as it is done in the UK.

You get what looks like a credit card and on every block in London you'll find stores (phone sotres, chain drug stores, chain grocery stores, convenience stores like 7-11's) that handle the top up for as little as 5 quid..takes about 25 seconds...hand the clerk the card, he or she swipes it rhrought their terminal, pay the 5 quid, done. Sim card, of course, is available for much less than CallEurope. Roaming outside the UK, at least receiving calls, is far cheaper than the callineurope rate.

Also, let me throw out one thought although perhaps it doesn't happen often. With a postpaid card, if god forbid you lose track of the phone and the sim card ends up in somebody else's possession (these things happen, you know you loan your phone to your teen age daughter and they lose it but don't tell you)...you are responsible for all calls made on it and I read a sad case a few months ago where somebody racked up $20.000 in call costs and the company held the original owner of the sim card responsible...I think they settled for somewhat less but still a lot of money. With a prepaid card, if you lose it, all you lose is the unexpired credit on it which is usually what...$5 or so...

I will admit, however, what with French mobile phone rates with French sim cards being very very high, callineurope might be a decent alternative.

But not for the UK (and remember there is no language problem in the UK..you have a problem, you just call customer service to resolve it)

xyz123 -
Thank you very much for all of the useful information. I have been reading your input on other UK cell phone talk threads and had some other questions. Apologies if I seem dim, but the cell phone technology is confusing for me.
I am staying at a rental apartment, so ordering the phone via T Mobile and having it delivered there probably won't be an option.
If I go to a T Mobile store in London after I arrive, will they be able to set me up with a temporary package?
For example: X amount of minutes for calling within the UK and x amount of minutes for calls to/from the USA?
Thanks again,
Picture_girl

Maybe you could have T-Mo send the SIMs to your landlord?

When you load a SIM, you are adding to the $ or £ or € value on it. The carrier's going rate for calls varies depending on time-of-day, whether you're calling one of their customers* or a number another network, and where the called party is located (in the same country, overseas, etc.) Your SIM balance is decreased as each call is made according to the above conditions.

* For example, Smobil.com in Germany charges 1€¢ to call another Smobil subscriber.

Thanks Robespierre-

If I buy the cell phone once I get to London, won't it already have a SIM card in it?

I guess I am not understanding the relationship between the SIM card and cell phone. The cellular technology is different in USA and UK. So are the SIM cards made to be compatible with each technology?

I just want a cell phone to use in UK to call other UK people and call USA and don't want to pay through the nose for per minute charges.

At this point I am looking for the least amount of hassle in achieving this goal. I leave on August 26, so the window for having something delivered to USA is narrow or closed.

Thanks again! Apologies for all the questions. :-)

To say there is a technological difference between US and UK cell (mobile) phones is not necesarily true....for the most part UK telcoms use gsm which is used in the USA by T Mobile USA and AT&T; verizon and sprint use different technologies. The gsm carriers in the USA use different frequencies for their service than do European gsm carriers; but the phones may or may not be compatible that is if your carrier is T Mobile USA or AT&T, you may already have a phone with one of the UK frequencies, in this case the key one for use on T Mobile UK is 1800 mhz. USA tri band and quad band phones will certainly have 1800 mhz.

Probably the least hassle will be to wait till you get to the UK and go into either a T Mobile UK store or a general mobile store. Buy the cheapest phone they sell with a sim card...it might not cost much more than 20 quid. Don't let the folks at Carphone Warehouse talk you into any other carrier other than T Mobile UK as they may not be familiar of the advantage of using yourcallworld.

When you buy the phone and sim card, they will set it up for you and top up the sim card with probablyh 10 quid worth of credit..credit is not divided between calling the UK and calling the USA. They will set up voicemail for you. Again, they may not be familiar with yourcallwotrld so don't let them talk you into anything else. You want a plain vanilla t mobile UK sim card.

Then have them program this number into your mobile phone: 07755 22 0303...they can set it up for you probably as a quick dial number...

Then when you wish to call the USA, dial that number, you will start getting a message but you don't have to wait for it to finish...dial the USA number starting with 001 (001 212 555 1212) followed by # (not send)...and voila the call goes through clearly and quickly and you pay 3p/minute...after the first minute, you pay in 20 second intervals not that that is important at these rates.

To call a UK number, say 020 7555 1212, simply dial that number as it is starting with the 0...you pay 15p/minute for all UK calls with the basic T Mobile UK plan.

That's all there is to it; no brain surgery needed, not set up fee...as soon as you top up the T Mobile UK sim card you're in business. You will pay nothing to receive calls...you can text or send e mail via an internet cafe, readilly available in London, to let people know your UK number. Do remind them that calls from the USA to UK mobiles vary widely in price so check their ld carriers..also not to be deceived when they see low rates such as 5¢/minute to the UK, there will be a surcharge listed for calls to UK mobiles but not too bad.

Simplest, most hassle free method of doing it.

Thank you SO much xyz123!! You are fabulous!

I cannot wait to get there!

Yay!

xyz123 -- Is the rate for yourcallworld in addition to the cell phone rate? E.g., does it work like this -- if I want to call the US from the UK, I call the access number, which means minutes start being charged to my cell phone. Then I dial the US number through the access number for 3p per minute. So is that 3p plus the minutes I am being charged for being connected to the access line?

Sorry to be so dim. Don't why this is so hard for me to comprehend.

My daughter uses T Mobile UK as her mobile provider and says that on a recent holiday in Wales she had terrible mobile reception.

Has anyone had experience of T Mobile reception in the remoter parts of the highlands of Scotland?

The beauty of using yourcallworld with T Mobile UK is you don't pay for the call to the access number...it's 3p/minute to call the USA, Canada and landlines throughout most of the rest of the world period....that is why you use T Mobile UK with them...other carriers do charge for calls to the access number.

Yes, I've read that of all the main UK carriers, T Mobile UK's coverage in some of the hinterlands of the UK is a bit spotty but since the sim packs are so inexpensive if you're going to be in one of those areas for a while, you can always switch to Orange.