Phone services while overseas

Hello John
I have been researching this subject and I think I will be going for this one:
http://auspost.com.au/travel-id/prepaid-travelsim.html

G'day John,
In my experience its not the calls that are the problem but the data. Downloading emails and sending them uses up a lot of data and at 15c mb it can be expensive.
I had a bad experience in my last trip to Europe, where I didn't fully comprehend the issue and it cost me $1600 for three weeks.
Make sure you disable the data roaming on your phone before you go and use free WIFI where you can for data.
We are off to Kenya and the UK later this month and will buy a local sim card when we get there. This means of course that you have a new phone number but you need a hotmail or gmail account to get data.

Have a great trip,

Les

Not the UK, but parallels exist ...

On our (three) trips to the USA we purchased pre-paid local services direct from AT&T. Waaay cheaper than any aussie roaming deal. Ditto 2 Degrees in UnZud.

I'd suggest exploring the UK offerings, but make sure that whatever appliance you plan to put their SIM into is UNLOCKED before you go. Also be sure to check in advance whether your phone/tablet can operate on all the frequency bands used by the intended network operator.

You may find people offering cheap UK-based pre-paid SIMs on ebay that you can get in hand before you leave Oz. Handy in that you know (and can pass on to family etc) the destination phone# in advance, BUT note that activation is usually dependent on receiving an SMS to the appliance with that SIM fitted, and (in the case of USA at least) that won't arrive until you do, so you can't be 100% sure it's all a goer until you're there.

Another trap for the unwary here in Oz - and I cannot see any reason that elsewhere would be different - is coverage. Yes, by comparison with the UK our beloved Oz is empty and far from blanketed in cellphone coverage. Telstra are by far the best for coverage BUT the overwhelming majority (all but one in fact) of the resellers offer "Part of the Telstra network" and the difference is all in the lesser populated areas. So check the coverage of any network operator or reseller before committing.

On a separate aspect, unless you aren't driving around there you may need some satnav or mapping. While we use a Garmin Nuvi here in Oz/NZ (and USA) the cost of "foreign" maps for these can be annoying. Using a smartphone as a substitute can work OK but will chew through your data at an unhealthy rate. Consider using an off-line mapping app and downloading all the maps for the region before departing. While these won't give you turn-by-turn instructions, it will use the phone's inbuilt GPS (assuming it has one) to show where you are on the street-map. We even use that function here in the Oz outback as a supplement to the Garmin unit.

And most of all, have a safe and enjoyable trip.

We have roaming for phone calls, but would not make more than one a month, so that is fine for all of those needs.
We then try and get a local data only sim, or use free hot spots.
Skype is useful for otherwise expensive phone calls, if you have an internet connection.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

Hi John, we have been researching the same issue recently & on the advice of recent
travelling friends, have opted to go with "WhatsApp". Wazat? I hear you say..
It is a free App that allows you to text message anyone, anywhere in the world..
provided they have also downloaded the App. This is free anywhere you can get free
WiFi. So if you get your rellos & others on board, you can send text & photos free
provided you find free Wi Fi locations.
A good friend recently travelled widely in UK, Europe & Turkey & says this is by far the
best mobile phone contact system she has used. On prior trips she used various
"Travel Sims" & found them all complicated & unreliable.
If you get contacts to test message you, their contact will be added to your app & you
then nominate that contact when you wish to message them.
Hotel Lobbies, Airports, Train Stations etc are good sources of free WiFi as are large
Shopping Complexs & Maccas..:))
So we will shut down Data Roaming & use WhatsApp. You can always allow Data
Roaming if you find it necessary.
Cheers....oldbaz.

On two trips to the USA we did the following.

On first trip with an Iphone 3S (Unlocked) we bought an AT &T prepaid sim which wasnt a success as in Utah it didnt work too well, whereas others were getting reception on T mobile .
Last trip to Canada and USA (Unlocked Samsung Galaxy)bought a cheap sim card for two weeks in Canada.
In New York we bought a $35 T Mobile sim at a hole in the wall shop for $20 with a month of unlimited calls on it. Just topped it up at end of the month with $10. Worked everywhere. No data on it as had laptop for use on Wifi at hotels.

For navigation had a US GPS bought cheap on Amazon Sold it when came home for more than we paid for it

Friends were told only to email us except for one who we gave the phone number for emergencies.

Last year we used 2 travel sims ( probably the same as aus post ) in the UK/France in our UNLOCKED phones.
We picked up a twin pack for $50 however some places had them for $50 each, shop around.
We also had our telstra sim as a backup in case something didn't work which we didn't use.

So, we found the travel sim to be excellent for calls and sms.
You do have to put a minimum of $25 on each card so there's $ 100 before a call is made in our case.
Don't know about data as we didn't take any tablets etc or care about email or internet.
We don't need it in the outback so why Europe.
We came home with probably half the credit which is lost or you can use it here.

Regarding data, every hotel, B&B, etc. that we stayed in had free wifi so with the kids ipod's we could check our email if so desired and they kept in touch with school friends daily.
Unless you really must have data you can get by easily with out it.
A lot of pubs, restaurants had it as well and you just asked for their password.

Dean

I travel overseas quite frequently. I always find that there is no substitute for unlocking your phone if it is locked, and getting pre paid cards in the country that you are travelling within, and calling from.

Phone calls, including those to home or overseas are 20 to 100 times cheaper than even those silly travel plans / card you can get here and data is cheaper still. With a lot of data, you can use google maps, research your trip, use watsapp and free / cheap call services such as skype.

John/Val,
Going OS in a couple of weeks. The travel insurance co offered me a free SIM card pre- paid service. I have opted for that seems pretty good call costs to Aus. from the countries that I am travelling to are pretty good ,(most expensive to call OZ = 47c per min.) texts 25c.
That Co. is Cover More Travel Insurance. They checked phone compatability etc & have run tests here all okay.

Mike.

Hi All,
We did the UK, Irish Republic trip last year. The first thing to note is that mobile phone coverage out of the main city areas in the UK is to say the least mixed. The locals complain about the black spots all the time. They seem to spend more time swapping providers than they do talking on the phone. In the more isolated areas there is no 3G coverage so even downloading emails is a challenge.
We decided to buy an iPhone and an iPad sim at Sydney airport. The first thing they did at SimCity was to check that the iPhone was actually unlocked as it was supposed to be. Believe it or not it wasn't fully. After dealing with this I purchased a Lebara sim for the phone and an EE sim for the iPad. The Lebara sim turned out to be a nightmare. They refunded my purchase price. The EE sim for the iPad was excellent but did require some assistance with setting up. A point to note is that in the UK you cannot use your Aus credit card to top up online. This is quite an annoyance.
I left my phone with its Telstra sim and purchased a 30 day data pack. The phone worked throughout the UK and the Irish Republic. It would connect to a great variety of providers. This is useful as of course as soon as you cross into the Irish Republic you are in a foreigh country and UK sims often don' t roam.
As mentioned many times in this thread free WiFi is available everywhere. We stayed exclusively in B&B's and all provided WiFi thus phone and tablet data useage is not an issue.
The reality is that you don't make that many call when you are away. Thus a Telstra sim worked well everywhere. A local tablet sim is worth getting. For the UK I can recommend EE. Hope this helps.

Thanks everyone for your experiences and suggestions, we will follow them up. We are just looking at phone calls only and probably not many at that. We have data covered via wifi at most of the places where we will be staying. Thanks also to those who mentioned navigation. When last in the UK we used a free program called Navigator on a portable windows device - it uses open source maps, has turn by turn and voice, with many POIs and served us very well. Especially for the price! This time we will have it running via an Android app on a tablet with inbuilt GPS (plus on phone as a back-up) - have used it locally and works just as well.

Keep the phone options coming.

Cheers,

Val.

John (excellent name, by the way!)
We travelled to the US a couple years ago, and found that the easiest way was to buy a prepaid SIM card there. Beat the heck out of Telstra roaming because we expected to be using it to talk to motels etc, as well as family there, so was going to cost a few arms and legs to do that with roaming.
On the other hand, we travel regularly to Japan, and use roaming there as we do not expect to do much talking while there, use local wifi for data and emails (some places in Japow have free wifi, and we use that whenever possible) and only check calls at night while there.

We advise the family that it costs us for all calls, even incoming, to our number, so they know to use it only for emergencies. - of course, when in Japan, we are skiing most of the day, no point having a phone on slope - cannot hear and don;t want to stop!

I use Viber when travelling where there is free wifi, and it saves a lot of money as it is voice or SMS over Internet. Skype and WhatsApp are versions of the same thing. You are not risking expensive data costs, as you are connecting to the wifi in the hotel, Starbucks, Maccas, etc. The person you are calling needs to have the same app. For the times that I do not have internet coverage, I use a Woolworths sim, but that is not very often.

I've tried most of the overseas phone options and a pre paid sim bought in the local country on its best network is preferred in my opinion. It's amazing how scarce the wifi is in a lot of supposedly civilised countries so using things like skype out to dial normal phone numbers is hit and miss. The only problem I've had is activating or recharging the sim in a country that doesn't speak English.

Interesting to read of other folks experiences.
On a trip through Canada a couple of years ago, I attempted to buy a local sim card from their two major Telcos and discovered that their sim cards would not work in my Australian model iPhone 4S. The sim cards were not recognised by the phone. Appears their GSM technology is incompatible with the Aussie GSM network. As Canada use the same technology as the US, I assumed that the same problem would occur in the US.

So I resorted to using Global Roaming on my Telstra sim card and used sparingly, knowing that call costs would be significantly higher.
Family could keep in contact with us should they have had the need.

Again, thank you everyone for your thoughts. The diversity of options is evident above!

If there is a trend emerging it is that one should travel with an unlocked phone and swap in a sim from a reputable operator in the destination country.

Another gem of wisdom was that if you've spent tens of thousands on fares and accomodation, why begrudge Telstra their few dollars? Good question - it just galls me that they want so much more when offering no more than can be bought from others for less than 1/10 the price!

This thread has become a valuable source of information for anyone planning overseas travel. Thank you all for contributing.

Cheers

John

depends on how much you plan on using the phone as to how much you consider too much.
I have vodafone Non contract $50 red sim and for $5 per day (only pay the days you use) I can use all its benefits overseas, so last trip I paid my $50 for the month and for the month i was there i used it 25 days paying a total of $175 that month.
Fot that I got completely unlimited phone calls over there, 300 minutes of international calls, 3gb of data usage (use wifi where possile) and incoming aussie calls were as if they were taken in Oz with no extra fee for receiving them.
I worked out how much I usually spend on prepaid overseas and for the convenience it was well worth it and worked out about the same.