Need prepaid sim advice while traveling to London, Paris, Monaco, Venice, Rome,Madrid
 

Hi everyone!

This is my 1st post, so please take it easy on me :)

I am from Canada and have 2 unlocked GSM phones:
1. Blackberry 8800
2. Motorola L6

We are visiting the cities above within a span of 18 days in Europe.

I would like to have 1 number for each phone and was wondering what the best prepaid sim card plan would be that would combine reasonable calling rates back to Canada as well as reasonable roaming rates while calling from a country other than the sim card's originating country.

Thanks in advance!

Just a few further questions: Do you anticipate receiving many calls or will the phones be mainly for making calls? Instead of making calls back to Canada, will your calling contacts there be able to call you back instead?

For the most part, the phones will be used for making calls to each other while traveling and to phone#s in the cities mentioned above. Only one of the phones would be used to call Canada once or twice a day over the 18-day period. And YES, my contact (son) in Canada could call me back instead, if I can somehow SMS him for FREE beforehand :)

..or pehaps give him a missed call? Though not all of the roaming SIM's mentioned on this site have caller ID.

I'm a bit pushed for time at the moment, and there's a lot to chose from but I suggest you look at the specialist international roaming cards (which will give you free incoming for all those countries) listed on: http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html. There are a range of these with many incoming number options though quite a few of the more popular ones are +447. (i.e. classed as UK mobile if calling from Canada).

Your other options are to just get a normal UK T-Mobile (or other) SIM whilst in London (which cost next to nothing or are even free if you order online in a promo which I think is still on). I mentioned T-Mobile as whilst you are in the UK you can call Canada for a bargain rate of 3p/min via a special 07755 access code. Incoming calls whilst in the UK are also obviously free. When you continue your trip, as all those other destinations are in the EU, you will pay normal Euro-capped tariffs whilst roaming with that. In UK money that reflects as 19p/min incoming and 38p/min outgoing (which will include calls to the other handset as well as back to Canada).

With an International roaming card, outgoing calls are variable (probably around the same that I mentioned to Canada) but can be cheaper to each other. The main advantage of these is that incoming calls are free but the disadvantage is that they cost you something up-front to buy. As I say, have a look around on this site.

You could also consider getting an o2 UK SIM and taking out a one month subscription to MyEurope Extra which also gets you free incoming in all of your countries. You will need an o2 SIM (which you can pick up very cheap in UK) and then the months subscription will cost £10. Outgoing calls are reduced to 25p/min though using a callback provider such as returncall.co.uk calls can be made back to Canada for around 5p/min and this to from wherever you are in Europe.

As you are after 2 you may wish to pick and mix something too!

Note that long distance charges from Canada to Europe are much higher to a cellphone than they are to a landline. For instance yak.ca charges 3.5¢ to 5¢/min to most European landlines but 29¢ or more to cellphones. (That's still a lot cheaper than going the other way.)

If you have access to the Internet, say at a kiosk in a hotel lobby, then you could try some of these: http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/anyo...ite-t3536.html

Thank you for both of your replies. They have been very informative. The T-Mobile UK sim card seems like a very reasonable option.

I just happened to take a peek at eBay today and came across this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-NEW-T-MOBILE-U...2em118Q2el1247

Would these work for what I intend to use them for? The way I understand it, if I buy them, I can give the mobile#s out right away (even if they are NOT activated yet) to the hotels and pickup services that I have booked with so they can contact me if necessary while we're on our trip. Of course, as soon as we get to London, I will use the top-up card supplied for each sim to add at least 5pounds to each sim to activate the service.

I know there's a FREE promo for 2 sim cards right now. I'm trying to contact the Hotel i'm booked at in London to see if I can use their address with my name, and then just have them email me the mobile#s when they get the package. That's if they agree to this, of course :)

As far as my son in Canada phoning us on our mobile phones, I believe Primus TalkBroadband have an option where you pay an additional $10 for the month that you are in Europe, you get to make a number of calls for FREE to a cell or landline.

Thanks again for your great advice!!!

The world prepaid SIMs are not bad. I have United Mobile+. It costs me about 30-odd Eurocents a minute to make an outbound call to landlines in the civilized world (which is reasonable enough for me). Inbound calls in many countries in the world are free, and the number is a UK number so the rate isn't too ridiculous for people to call it. (Some of the international SIMs have obscure numbers from Liechtenstein, Iceland, Estonia, etc. which, while intriguingly cool, can be fairly costly to call from some countries.)

If you want the lowest possible rate, getting SIMs in each country you visit is probably best, but for such a whirlwind trip, it won't make sense. You will not be in any one country long enough to take huge advantage of having a local SIM.

The first half of that request should be OK, I send my visitors SIM's to hotels fairly often. However I am not sure if T-Mo will post to a hotel. It maybe an offer for residential customers only.

Even if it works, the second part is a bit tricky! Good luck with finding a concierge that will open the package, take out the 2 SIM packs, flip them over find the tiny numbers and then email them to you! You'd better be a good customer!

My advice is pay the $8 and get them off ebay.

Sounds like a good plan :)

Is the L6 you have a triband or a quadband model? Some L6s are quad, but most are triband, which may be a bit of an issue in Europe if the provider you want to use uses the band you don't have. (And which bands does your BlackBerry cover?)