Europe - pay as you go
 

Hi everyone!
I´m going to England next month. I'll be there for 3 weeks and then I´ll spend a week travelling through France and Italy.

I´ll take my GSM-Quadriband and I would like to buy a SIM in order to be available if someone need to contact me. In order to make easier and cheaper my friend´s / relative´s calls I´m thinking about using Skype facilities like SkypeIn and Forwarding Calls.

I took a look in National Operators, but I have no idea in which one to choose.

I would like to know if someone could give me some hints?


Regards

One possibility which is working in all european countries would be to buy an airBalticcard | About airBalticcard Mobile and use SparRuf – mit dem Handy billig ins Ausland telefonieren for forwarding incoming calls.

You pay 19/min for incoming calls, settled from your sparruf account, people who call you pay their national landline rate.

Outgoing calls are ca. 45ct/min with the airbalticcard.

The airbalticcard is roamingfree in all european countries.

Vodafone UK. It has free roaming in France and Italy this summer.

Hi!
Thank you guys!
Regards,
Luiz K

I'd also suggest Vodafone, especailly for the roaming calls later on. There are add-on monthly bundles called Freedom Packs e.g. 300 minutes for £20, and it seems the inclusive calls can even be used from abroad back to the UK, where you could use a callthrough account to reach other international destinations.

But for use within UK, it might also be worth thinking about one of several mvno brand SIMs with cheap direct-dialled international calls, such as Globalcall, IDT, Lebara, Lyca, Nomi or Talkmobile

Vodafone UK now has cheap international calls, too.

Yes, but 10p/min to Brazil, compared to 4p on some of the others

Vodafone is not the best plan for a UK centric vacation, but for someone doing all of Europe, it can't be beat. My best friend who lives in England is going to France for three weeks with his wife at home. His kid is going for another three weeks for an intensive French program. I tried to get him to order to free Voda SIMs and he told me "how I just complicate things." He'll just roam with his Orange SIM thank you very much. Ugh.

Oh I know this attitude so very well. About 2 years ago a friends father went on a 1 week trip to mexico and came back with a 700 Euro phone bill. I offered to help him out (with potential drastic savings), but he just won't buy any idea I throw at him. He has been to Mexico (and elsewhere) about 4 times since with similar bills!

Well, you can't help them all!!! ;)

oh yes, oh yes... sounds like my bosses. Always complaining about their horrific roaming bills but never really used the roaming sims or other options that i offered to them...

Chris