vB Easy Archive - Prepaid SIM shhipped to me?

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Prepaid SIM shhipped to me?
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Posted by: char777

My family would like a Vodafone SIM to use for an unlocked phone for when we travel internationally, and I was wondering if we could call up Voda and ask them to ship us a prepaid SIM. Will they do this? Will it work everywhere? How much will it cost? What number do we call?

Thanks!

Posted by: Junglizt1210

I doubt it.

eBay is one option.

the second option: I would be happy to send you one also, and could have extra credit added to it.

The best thing about a Vodafone SIM card is that they are ready to roam overseas and also 3G ready (if you are in a country that uses 2100MHz UTMS).

Posted by: char777

How much does it cost if I go into a country (like Singapore) where they don't have Vodafone? Can I use it prepaid there? Can I only use Vodafone in wherever you bought your SIM?

Thanks.

Posted by: Junglizt1210

As I said, it is ready to roam, so can be used anywhere (as long as you have sufficient credit)

If you travel a lot, and not a lot to the UK , I don't think a Vodafone SIM is a good idea. This might be better for your purposes:

http://www.united-mobile.com/cms/we...=2&idcatside=26

...or buy a SIM card when you arrive in Singapore.

Costs can be found here:
http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispat...&pageID=GM_0098

Also, you may wish to sign up to Vodafone Passport if you do decide to go with Vodafone.

When you roam, you often pay more so getting United Mobile which is speciifically catered for travellers, or getting a local SIM card is a good idea. I was in Hong Kong for 3 and half months and I bought a SIM card there and was cheap to make calls too. You're paying at least 20 times what you would pay if you used a Vodafone SIM and roamed there. When I visited New York, even though it was only for a week, I still bought a SIM card and saved on roaming costs (it adds up..!)

Posted by: powerlifter

Quote:

Originally Posted by char777

My family would like a Vodafone SIM to use for an unlocked phone for when we travel internationally, and I was wondering if we could call up Voda and ask them to ship us a prepaid SIM. Will they do this? Will it work everywhere? How much will it cost? What number do we call?

Thanks!

I bought my Vodaphone sim from freedom mobile. http://www.freedom-mobiles.co.uk/ They shipped the sim to me to the states.It only comes with one pound of credit. I had to go to the UK to put credit on it. You can top up with a U.S. credit card if you have a U.K. Address. You will need the Passport feature to keep your cost down. I use it if I am in the UK or Europe for a day or so. I travel once a month to the old Soviet Block Countries I use a local sim card. I am here for two to three weeks. It is a lot easier for me. I make a lot of local calls, and locals do not want or afford to call abroad. I hope this helps.

Posted by: mrcamp

As already mentioned, if you want to be able to roam in more than one country, one of the international sims that works in several countries, and with very reasonable rates is your best option. You can compare them here and also visit the international forum there. I personally use United Mobile and GlobalSim.

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html

Posted by: char777

Quote:

Originally Posted by Junglizt1210

If you travel a lot, and not a lot to the UK , I don't think a Vodafone SIM is a good idea. This might be better for your purposes:

http://www.united-mobile.com/cms/we...=2&idcatside=26

That sounds great! How are they? Their prices are good, but how do I reload minutes? And they say they have their own "network infrastructure". What does that mean? Are they partnered up with several carriers (like what the American carriers do) to and use those networks or what?

Posted by: mrcamp

You can recharge your minutes via the website, or via the phone. You can also set it up tto recharge automatically after your credit drops below a certain amount. They have roaming agreements with the networks in each country. For example, my card roams here on either tmobile or cingular...it depends on which one has the strongest signal whereever I am. I have used my card in UK, Jamaica, Cayman Island, St. Martin, Netherlands, Nigeria, etc. without any problsms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by char777

Posted by: Junglizt1210

I'm pretty sure that United Mobile have roaming agreements with a variety of providers in most countries. There are a handful of countries where it won't work, but I don't think that would be much of an issue. I haven't used it myself unfortuantely. I don't travel enough to justify owning one.

Posted by: char777

Ok, now I understand the prices and all, but my sister's going to Italy next fall for a semester, and her friends are probably going to pick up a local SIM and all. Since my sister would have a Lictenstien number, would her friends be billed as calling a Lietensteing numer?

Posted by: powerlifter

Quote:

Originally Posted by char777

Ok, now I understand the prices and all, but my sister's going to Italy next fall for a semester, and her friends are probably going to pick up a local SIM and all. Since my sister would have a Lictenstien number, would her friends be billed as calling a Lietensteing numer?

If she is going for a semester I say go with a local sim. Her friends would be billed for calling Lictenstien. If you call her it is free incoming. If she travels outside of Italy she can use her Lictenstien number.

Posted by: mrcamp

Yes. definitely have her pick up a Local sim in Italy since she will be there for that long. And plans on receiving quite a few incoming calls. It can be quite expensive calling a Liechenstein number or any other non Italian mobile for that matter. Because they will be making an international call.

Posted by: sdbe

Is anyone familiar with this company? Their rates seem to be lower than most. I will be in UK for a couple of weeks and need a local sim and this seems to be the best buy. The only downside is that it expires in 60 days.

www.telestial.com

Posted by: mrcamp

What rate is lower than most and What sim are youa talking about? You pay a premium by buying from telestial. Their sim prices are about 3 - 4 times more than others. Why can't you just pick up a sim ebay or when you get to your destination? The best buy for a UK sim is either on ebay or UK. I have a couple of UK sims that I bought on ebay UK for next to nothing. They actually give these things away for free in UK sometimes.

Virgin UK sim sims on ebay UK.

http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/sea...sim+&category0=

Quote:

Originally Posted by sdbe

Is anyone familiar with this company? Their rates seem to be lower than most. I will be in UK for a couple of weeks and need a local sim and this seems to be the best buy. The only downside is that it expires in 60 days.

www.telestial.com

Posted by: sdbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrcamp

What rate is lower than most and What sim are youa talking about? You pay a premium by buying from telestial. Their sim prices are about 3 - 4 times more than others. Why can't you just pick up a sim ebay or when you get to your destination? The best buy for a UK sim is either on ebay or UK. I have a couple of UK sims that I bought on ebay UK for next to nothing. They actually give these things away for free in UK sometimes.

Virgin UK sim sims on ebay UK.

http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/sea...sim+&category0=

Thanks for the information. I am still trying to understand how this all works in the UK, for example, why would anyone have more than one sim card. One of those ebay ads had someone with 37 sims for sale (as a bundle, not individually). Doesn't each sim link to a phone number and also expire after a certain number of days?

The rates that I was referring to were the per minute charges. Comparing Virgin to Telestial:
UK domestic call - Virgin from 10p to 35p
Telestial 15p

UK to US call - Virgin 20p
Telestial 5p

The UK to US is important to me since I will probably be making quite a few calls back home.

Am I correct that Virgin would charge the same regardless of where I got the sim? I used the following web site for the Virgin pricing.

http://intouchsmartcards.com/UK_SIM.htm

Thanks again for the help.

Posted by: andy962

Quote:

Originally Posted by sdbe

As mrcamp said, the SIMs here are periodically given away free. Some people applied for loads that they didn't actually need, on the basis they could sell them at vast profit on eBay, then started complaining that the SIMs had dropped in value due to oversupply! Now most of them are bored and just want to dump the lot, hence bundles of 20 or 30. You could be right that some would have expired

The SIM at Telestial is Mobile World, which is a brand of Carphone Warehouse, one of the largest cellphone retailers here. If you can wait until you get here, you'd get a SIM off them for just the value of the credit on it.

Others to consider are Orange Call Abroad, 5p to USA but more for UK, T-mobile with an add-on package of 4p/min to USA and UK calls at 12p/min, or more complicated O2 int'l bolt-on and a calling card access in Ireland 5p + 2c

If you will talk to USA for ages, then consider 3, which has a £15 int'l option valid for a month (different vouchers at Superdrug, most High Streets) that gets up to 3000 minutes to the landlines of several countries. You'd need to have a 3g phone, though they roam on 2g as well. Their UK calls are more expensive though, so you might have two SIMs

Other than that, I'd suggest either Mobile World or T-mobile.

To help decide ... if you intend return trips and want to have the same SIM valid, note that MW is only valid for 60 days since last outbound call, and it has no roaming, so no short call at home to keep it going; they could reactivate it later, but might charge for this.

The T-mobile add-on of £2 for 50 minutes to USA is allowed 6 times per customer, so if 300 minutes isn't enough either go for MW or maybe get two networks

http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/sim/c...dsim?WT.svl=209
- an ordinary Orange SIM can be converted by calling CS

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/Dispatche...ca_payg&pt=payg
- see the int'l bundles about halfway down the page

http://www.three.co.uk/personal/on_...ional_saver.omp

Posted by: jackiem

Does anyone have experience with using the "One Roam" global SIM?

Their service looks OK--e.g I like that there is no expiration for the SIM card and they have acceptable rates for calls in Europe. But there are no reviews online and they aren't listed in any of the sites that compare services. Also, when I called them today, a "customer service" person said they were too busy to take my call and would call me back! This was at 10 am on a weekday!