I will take a 3 month solo trip in a leased car to France and Italy in late August. I've researched phone options till my eyes glaze over. I'm thinking of using either United-Mobile or callbackworld, but am not sure if they are the same thing. Clarification appreciated.??

Since I don't have a cell phone here at home (CA), I wanted to get a phone which would be good for Europe use, but also can be used back home for occasional 'on-the-road' calls.?? Does anyone know if the Mobal $99 phone would serve this purpose? And, if so, can I buy their phone but use United-Mobile or callbackworld services instead of Mobal's? I'm reluctant to call and ask, for obvious reasons.

Needs of phone and service:

1. calls within France and Italy for res's, info, calling acquaintances--hopefully free or cheap incoming from within those countries

2. Ease and cheapness of calls from U.S. to me in Europe

3. Can receive messages??

4. Ease and cheapness of calls from me in Europe to US

5. Capacity to use phone once home in US

I am leery of doing the eBay thing for various reasons. I would so appreciate input on which phone options and/or services you think would best suit this package of needs.

Thanks,
Karen

Let me know if this is better for a different forum.

If this post would be better served on a different forum, please let me know.

Have you taken a look at this? It will probably help if you do. Then you can ask specific questions afterwards.

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/inde...showtopic=1323

1. Unlocked GSM phone with 900 & 1800 MHz bands. (eBay)
2. For a 3-month trip get local SIMs in both Italy & France.
3. VOIP service with call forwarding (e.g. VoiceStick.com)
4. A good callback service.

Not sure right now which are the best choices for item #2.

You'll have different opinions.

UM and CBW are different, but you can/should use them together in Europe.

Don't recommend MOBAL

Don't recommend UM for US.

PERSONALLY, see if you have a friend with a spare unlocked GSM phone you can borrow. I really think it is too late to get NEW US service and an unlocked phone if you don't go the Ebay route. You may be able to find a dealer that sells unlocked TRI or QUAD band phones. For US choose quad (ie 850, 900, 1800, 1900).

You could consider 2 local SIM cards, one for France and one for Italy. With the UM you will have FREE incoming in both countries, but people will or may be reluctant to call you -- it will be long distance for them.

Most EU nationals and UM have messaging. UM is expensive, however, to send.

If you want to use the PHONE in the US, forget the UM and EU SIMs. You will probably want to START with a NEW US prepaid plan, either T-MO, Cingular or one of the knock-offs. This will depend on coverage in your area. This for occaisional use, you say. Don't think you need post-pay. YET.

Ease and cheap don't go together when it comes to calls to EU cell phones - usually > 20 cents per minute. Check direct dial (obviously easiest) rates from your carrier or for the folks who might be calling you (the Liechtenstein cell, French cell and Italian cell rates), especially if you only have a cell. If you are staying in one place longer, calling from US to the land line phone in your hotel room or wherever, will be less expensive (< 5 cents per minute).

Some of this and more is in the refernced thread.

Since the OP is a "newbie", I wouldn't rec. UM. She doesn't even have a cel phone here!
UM's service is NOT standard and would be diff. for a newbie to understand. Using UM would not be good because it can cost people who want to call her mucho dinero.
I would simply rec. she get an unlocked quad band phone off ebay. Some Motorola phones can be had new for $100 or less - I think you can find a good quad band used for $50.
I would not buy from an individual, buy from a business. Lots of individuals don't even know what "unlocked" means. (It means you can use ANY SIM card from any carrier.)

So - buy an unlocked phone, or, temporarily borrow one from a friend. Just make sure it is unlocked and can work on the 900 and 1800 bands used overseas.
Buy a prepaid SIM when you hit France, another when in Italy. The only down side is that you will have to leave a msg on your home phone giving your overseas number.

Another alternative would be to get a Yackie card with a local U.S. number. Incoming calls would be only 24? in those two countries and people would have a local number to call. HOWEVER, Yackie is NOT quite yet ready for prime time.
They might be in a couple weeks. The system itself works perfectly - the support system (web site etc.) is just now getting into gear according to posts here.
IF users get the SIM cards they were promised were shipped today AND the support system is running smoothly - that's the best way to go.
Follow the Yackie thread here in the next couple weeks.

...mike

Thank you for your responses. I didn't realize the site doesn't email me when one is made, so I'm a bit late in getting back to you. Believe it or not, I did do extensive research on this before writing here, so although I've never used a cell phone, I have a general idea of the issues involved.

After reading the thread noted above, and the responses, here I've decided to modify (hopefully simplify my "need list" as follows:

1. forget using the phone back here in California--complicates things too much

2. I'll only receive incoming calls from U.S. from one person--my housesitter--which will likely never exceed 5 minutes or so--only for emergencies.

3. calls within France, within Italy and what few I might make between countries, will not exceed 5 minutes

4. Voicemail messages can be left for me.

5. I prefer to not buy separate SIM cards--too much to keep track of--here, ease trumps pennies

With these ideas in mind, I though UM would be a decent choice, especially paired with CBW or Yackie. Will those who don't like that option please explain why? I like the idea of one phone number (for future trips), ease of renewal fees.

What about UM is difficult to understand?

Does anyone know if a Mobal $99 phone work with the UM card? Can it be purchased unlocked? (I don't want to call and ask them, since they make their $$ on their calling plans.)I am reluctant to do eBay for various reasons, and prefer a straightforward, clean purchase of something which works well, without "if" attached. I have no friends with GSM phones to borrow from.

Given my limited phone needs, in summary, I want to go with simple, easy and reliable--I don't have time to experiment with mistakes.

Further thoughts in view of this modified input?

Thanks so much,

Karen

P.S. The reason I don't want to go the eBay route is that there are too many possibilities for not getting the right thing the first time. I just went there, and the numbers of offers are endless--too overwhelming for me. I'd rather pay $100 for something I know will work than $50 for something with a 40% chance of problems.

Hence, I'd really appreciate recs for phone purchase with that in mind. Then I can decide which service to go with.

Is Telestial considered not good here? (As far as the service issues go?)

Karen

If you will be getting a phone here in the US via ebay or not, more likely than not it will have one or both of the US bands. Any triband phone will have at least one of the US bands. A quad-band will obviously have both US and europe bands. The V551/557/v330, V635 are all very good quadband phones that can be had for around $100 on eBay. I (and probably most folks here) bought my phones on eBay.


If you do not want to go the ebay route, you can try any of the other online shops. I googled for unlocked GSM phone see results below. From what I have read, Telestial is a good company. But they are just too expensive. Most of their items are at least double the price they are else where.

It's not that UM is that difficult, but unlike your conventional calling, UM uses a callback mechanism to connect/make calls. It's explained in other threads.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navc...ocked+gsm+phone

Karen -
The trouble with UM is that it can cost anywhere from 35? to $1/min. to call a LIctenstein mobile (UM) number. You might want to check w. your LD carrier to see what the cost will be. It also uses callback for outging calls, but you sound intelligent enuf to follow the directions for doing that.<G>
When I used UM a year ago, they didn't have functioning VM. I gather that's been fixed.

Telestial is a very reputable outfit. They do charge a lot for most SIM cards. The advantage is that you would know the number to give out before you leave. As for a phone itself maybe you can buy one from a reputable shop at home. You need to make sure it is unlocked - meaning it will accept a SIM from anyone.
If you buy it at a shop - you can test if it is unlocked by having them turn it on w. a Cingular SIM in it, and then a T-Mobile SIM.

Where are you located? If, by chance, you are in northern Ca., I'll give you a perfectly fine quad band Moto V330 in exchange for a check for $50 to your favorite charity. (As long as it isn't the NRA)

You realize you are a unique person - probably the only poster on this board w.o. a cel phone! (And probably the only person you know w.o. one as well.)


...mike

Do not buy from telestial...they are rip off artists...they triple the price of sim cards they sell and besides which you don't get a choice of carrier.

In addition, please note that with French sims, at least with Orange FR (I don't know which one they're pushing) you don't get your number anyway...you have to wait till you get to France to register and at that point you get the number. Not knowing the number in advance is no big deal, you can easily text it or e mail it to friends or make a quick call to tell them the number.

As far as united mobile, united mobile has always had functional voice mail; the previous poster had a problem with something they were doing but voice mail always worked. His problem with it has been fixed now so there is no need to go into what his complaint was.

He does make a good point about calling Liechtenstein numbers; although with a callbackworld account, you get something called a pin2dest for free. This is a US toll free number you can give your friends...the only thing is that it isn't your very own toll free number...when the toll free number answers they have to enter a pin # cbw assigns to you...no big deal...OTOH you can get a US toll free number which is your own for a charge of $1.50/month.....in this case no pin would be needed. In any event, if you are using united mobile, you would pay $0.14 US/minute
timed in 6 second intervals to reach you

French prepaids tend to be expensive...they can work with callbackworld too but the rate is far more than $0.14/minute and callers to it or to an Italian local prepaid would pay in the vicinity of $0.35/minute. Italian sims are pretty cheap for local calls....but united mobile isn't all that expensive for local calls if you use callbackworld....

What everybody is alluding to about the difficulty of united mobile is that it operate on a callback system...you dial a number say in the United States on United Mobile and what happens on most phones is you get a message call not alloweed. You hang up and seconds later you get a call back, you answer it and you will hear your nuimber ringing....united mobile to the United States through its naitive service charges $.49/minute with a $.35 set up fee for each call (note you can buy United Mobile sim cards directly on their web site in one of 3 different currencies, euro, us dollars and British pound sterling....the above are the US charges. Also calls directly on United Mobile are billed to the next highest minute, not rounded to the next highest tenth of a minute like callbackworld.

So that brings us to callbackworld...if you use a callbackworld account to call, what happens is they give you your very own US number...you dial it as above on united mobile...you get a message call not allowed, you hang up and wait for the callback...when this callback comes you will hear a US ringing tone...after 1 or 2 rings you hang up again, no charge by United Mobile as the call has not been completed.

A few seconds later, you get a second callback..you answer it and you will hear a female voice say, "Please enter phone number followed by the number sign key now"...and you do it...you don't press send...the call will go through. As long as you are in a United Mobile no charge zone, all of western, central and a good part of Eastern Europe, Australia, South Africa, China among others, you don't pay to United Mobile as you are receiving.....you pay callbackworld's rates which as noted are to the United States from a United Mobile phone, $0.14/minute raised to the nearest tenth of a minute (6 secons)..a bargain. Some people say the call quality is not all that good which is understandable as to achieve the cheap rates, the calls are probably routed through various discount carriers but that is really no different than using one of those cheap international calling cards which give lots of minuters for very little...calls are not of landline quality but they are good enough for most purposes. You have voice mail and it functions...to access voice mail from Europe you use callbackworld as above and when the female voice answers you dial your Liechtenstein number...callbackworld charges $0.20/minute for these Liechtenstein to Liechtenstein call and since you will be on the Liechtenstein phone, the call will go right into voice mail.

Sometimes for technical reasons your callbackworld callback (the 2nd one) instead of reaching you goes into voice mail..if you suddenly get a message you have calls in voice mail after trying callbackworld, you can ignore them...for the most part as long as the phone is on if you miss a call the phone will indicate a missed call and then you can go into voice mail.

Finally, getting an true world tri band unlocked phone in the USA has become a bit of a problem since T Mobile no longer provides to its customers (and the merchants on ebay) real world tri band phones....again for a variety of reasons (USA non conformity with world standards) the frequencies used in the United Staes on its gsm (the technology you will be using in Europe) are different than the rest of the world (except Canada of course, but then again the Canadian phone system is toally tied in with the US phone system as Canada is the only country in the world without its own country code, something that must bug many Canadians and several Latin American systems and then again Japan uses a technology all its own)..I know some people who have been burned big time by buying a tri band phone in the United States which turned out to be 850/1800/1900 and finding they bought the wrong sim card which has very little 1800 coverage or found that in some countries most of the gsm converage is on 900...so indeed you want a quad band phone and there are some really cheap ones available thruogh web sites.

The only real weakness of United Mobile right now is I have had trouble sending text messages from my T mobile phone to them...I don't know if this is garbage being pulled by T Mobile blocking the text messages (although I can send text message from United Mobile to T Mobile phones)....

Again, you can order a united mobile sim card directly from their web site at a much much better price than the rip off artists at telestial.

Finally, if you read through this forum, there is an exciting start up company called Yackie Mobile...but there have been some problems with distribution of their sim cards and some on this forum have been very upset bu this, understandibly so.

If Yackie mobile is able to get their act together, they may become the best alternative for Americans as you will then be able to use them in the United States as a prepaid account at rates not too much higher than the regular prepaids...but time will tell.

My suggestion is probably united mobile, a quad band gsm unlocked phone but goiong the direction of separate local sims for France and Italy wouldn't be the worst idea either.

Yo, guys.

You're all really great to take the time to help me out. I appreciate it.

Thanks for the model numbers to look into, Bossman, and the link. Are those models Motorola?

Ha! I refrained from pointing out that I have a Ph.D. Only problem is it's in the most non-technical field it could be, so it doesn't do me much good on this stuff! I'm math and techno-challenged. :meh:

That is one thing I'm completely motivated to have: I want everything good to go when I get on the plane with my phone, so, when I arrive at CDG to pick up my leased car, I can call my friend in Paris to check in, etc, with no hassles or techno-challenges to contend with.

Well, as fate would have it, I'm in Fairfax, in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. Where are you? You can email me at kkmickleson at comcast dot net if you think this might work.

Matha, I'm astounded by the thoroughness of your response!

Do I understand correctly: if I had UM with CBW, I could get from CBW a toll-free # for U.S. callers for $1.50 a month? ie: It's from CBW, not from UM?

But, once I sign up for CBW, I'm tied to this double call-back system, where I have to call and wait twice? Sheesh! This is all such a pain in the butt! God help me if I've had a couple of drinks when I call for a dinner reservation in Italy. :blink:

Does this mean calls TO the U.S.?

The Yackie system sounds really good.

By the way, nobody has answered my question about using a "Mobal" phone with a UM card. Would this work?

Well, my last question would be this: Is there ANY system which would allow me to bypass all this ringing, hangups, waiting, calling-to-hang-up-again stuff? If so, what grand price would one pay for it?

You are all great. Thanks again.

Karen

Karen:

You understand correctly...if you open up a callbackworld account, which by the way is free to open and has no maintenance charges, you can get a US toll free number for $1.50/month and key it to whatever number you want via the web or by calling them. They're very helpful. If you key it to a United Mobile account, as long as you are in free United Mobile receiving turf which is, as we noted, all of Western and Central Europe as well as much of Eastern Europe, South Africa, Australia and China to boot, you will be paying 14?/minute for their calls to this number...they will pay whatever it costs them to call a US toll free number which in the US is of course nothing.

You are not wed to callbackworld...use them to call on united mobile only if yu want...they have other than the optional $1.50/month for a US toll free number no other recurring charges. You don't want to use them to make calls, you don't have to...they are not inalienably tied to the phone.

As far as the double call back on united mobile, well simply program your trigger number into your phone with 1 touch dialing.....bravo next to nothing for you to do...use the 1 touch dialing to call the trigger number wait for the first call back, answer and hang up and then wait for the second call back, answer and follow the directions. Once you've done it once or twice...well my 16 year old daughter is on a teen tour of Europe and I taught her to do it and in 25 seconds she figured it out.

As far as getting your French number from the rip off artists at Telestial, note that when I bought my first French sim (before United Mobile existed), it did not come with the number on the sim card...I had to call a number in France and at that point they texted me my number...so getting a French sim card in advance might not do what you want it to do. But you can make local calls in France with united mobile for 20?/minute (to landlines, something like 40? to mobile) via callback world...when the female voice sayd, "Please enter phone number followed by the number sign key now" simply type the French number with the prefix 33 and omit the first 0 in the number...it will go through. Incidentally these rates are even cheaper than you would pay on most French local sims!

Yes you can use the French local sim if you go in that direction and the Italian local sim to dial directly to the United States but right now that will cost you an arm and a leg (well maybe just a leg) as compared to callback world...I don't know if the "inconvenience" of the double call back is so terrible given the amount of money it will save.

And when you order a United Mobile sim card through United Mobile on its web site, you will know your Liechtenstein number which you can key into callbackworld before you leave.

The only thing to be careful about, as noted, is the difficulty in getting a real world tri band phone in the United States anymore...almost all the US sellers on ebay on their triband phones only sell the next to useless USA tri band phones from either Cingular or T Mobile that have substituted 850 frequency for 900...going to Europe without both 900 and 1800 on the phone might leave you up the creek without a cell phone in some countries and also restrict your choice of local sims...somebody on one forum lamented the fact she bought a cell phone from an ebay vendor in the USA went to Croatia and found it didn't work. The idiots at the cell phone store and her tour director (she was on a tour) told her the phone was locked which was absolutely untrue...the problem was, she later discovered, was the vendor claiming he was selling her a true world tri band phone sold her a stripped down US tri band cell phone without 900 and the Croatian sim card she bought was on a company which only used 900....the obvious solution being, of course, quad band phones.

Hope that helps.

Yes. Those are all Motorolas.

Yes. It's from CBW. Or you can get the regular toll-free# that will require a PIN#. There is not monthly charge for this one.

I know...that's the minor drawback. If we can call it that. But, the calls are a whole lot cheaper. And you get one # to use in several countries.

Yes. If you call directly without going through CBW. In this case you only get one callback.

Yes. It does sound good. Quite a few of us here, especially those based in the US, have ordered this sim. Majority of us also have UM. But if yackie holds up to all that iot promised, it will be very competitive with UM. Just the fact that we get a US# is a big plus.

I am not sure about the mobal phone compatiility. Whatever phone it is, you can probably get it for 50% or less of the price mobal is wanting for it somewhere else.

Yes. You will just have to get a regular sim. You can buy one in each country or buy one and just roam on it in the other country.

OK. Sorry if I'm being dense here, but I need to clarify and see if I understand:

I get a phone--(With a little luck, Matha, Mike's tried & true V330).

I sign up for a UM account with the Lichtenstein #.

I then sign up w/CBW for an 800 number. (in my case, I'd pay the $1.50 for no pin.)

At that point, my phone number changes from whatever UM gave me (Lichtenstein #) to a U.S. 800 number. Correct? And, anyone calling me from within Europe would also use the 800 #?

I master the callback procedures as described above.

When I call to Italy# from within Italy, or to France# within France, I have to use the country code without the first zero, as if I were making the call from the U.S.?

HOWEVER, do I understand that IF the Yackie system is working correctly, it would replace BOTH the UM and CBW, while also providing a U.S. based, permanent, phone number?

Thanks again for your patience.

Karen

Karen -
I have a new Moto #L6 coming which should be delievered by Mon. I'll email you then and we can meet somewhere - we'll have to flip to see who pays the bridge toll. As said, you can have it in exchange for $50 check to a charity.
I am also the one who has had the Yackie card for a couple weeks, so can give you a demo.
Hmm. Maybe in exchange for all this you can buy me a drink :D

I am in Bkly.

...mike

You never actually give up the Liechtenstein number...calls to the 800 number are routed there but you can also be reched directly (not that you would probably want to given the price for calls to Liechtenstein) on the +423 number...it is even advantageous for the most part given the way European numbers operate to have European people call the US toll free number (they will probably pay less to call the US toll free number than to call a Liechtenstein number even from France and Italy).

As for Mobal, a couple of years ago I used them to buy a nokia phone from them which they were selling at the time...the phone arrived unlocked and I have never used them thereafter and I am sure many people did the same.

The only question is if the phone is unlocked...I hear they're pushing motorola quad bands now for the reasons we described earlier. It is easy, if a Nokia phone is locked, to unlock it. It is much more difficult to unlock a Motorola phone, it can be done but somebody will probably have to do it for you...nokia phones they have broken the unlocking calculator which is a free download on the net (Nokia, those rats, are working with mobile companies to render this calculator useless but it still works for older models' ;to me locking phons is immoral anyway but that's a whole different topic)...mobal I would never use for calls; their rates are obscene.

Way cool! If you can find a place to have a drink where they serve vodka, I'm game! Maybe Skates is the only option? :beer:

Looking at the lists of phones you guys have, it amazes me. Do you just buy 'em for hobbies? Or is it sorta like all the digital camera guys--just gotta havethe latest thing??? Do you need this L6, or is it a new toy?

Karen

Thanks, Matha. It is slowly growing a bit clearer.

Hey, Mike: That Motorola V330 is unlocked, right???? :clap:

Karen

Unlocked? Of course. Wouldn't have anything else.

I keep my phones for years. My everday phone is a tri-band phone that I have had for 3 or maybe 4? years. The problem is it doesn't work on the 850 band now in use in the U.S. Doesn't affect me here in Ca.. (Use T-Mobile here.)
Got the V330 a few months ago to use w. Cingular when out of Ca/Nv. Problem is that I like a bar shaped phone like my old Sony-Ericsson. The V330 is a clam shell and doesn't fit well in my shirt pocket. My new phone is a bar style phone.

The one reason I never upgraded to newer phones is: they all have color screens that I find impossible to read under many circumstances.. I can read my SE black and white screen under almost any condition. The screen is always "on".

I am not as technically "with it" as many here. Only text a few times a year - but use thousands of voice minutes a month. I have taken to using my cel almost 100% of the time instead of using an office or home land phone. I am addicted to my bluetooth head set.

...mike

Just to explain to everyone: Members here are not only all over the U.S. - but all over the world!! It turns out that Karen is about 15 miles as the crow flies from me across San Francisco Bay. Driving is maybe 20-25 miles. She lives in the "rich" Marin County - I live in the politically radical town of Berkeley. I am on the East side of S.F. Bay, she is on the North side.

Some European voice in discussion (however, neither French or Italian) :).

As Matha has already told, you don't "lose" or "change" your phone number.
In fact, you have two phone numbers. The first one is a Liechtenstein number assigned to the UM SIM card (ie. a piece of electronics which you'll receive from the vendor and insert in an appropriate place in your mobile phone). If someone calls that number, and you're in Europe, you pay nothing for receiving a call. A 800 "personal" number from CBW is completely independent of UM or any other operator.

GSM mobile phones and networks support "international number format". This means that no matter where you are and where you are calling/messaging, you dial +CountryCodeDestinationNumber , eg. +12345556789 for US/Canada,
+391234567890 for Italy etc. If you mean "leading zero" used for national calls within some countries, you'right - if you replace this zero with +CountryCode, it'll be OK. Usually you dial "+" sign just by long pressing a key on the phone with "+" printed on it.

From the technical point of view you're right. Moreover, Yackie also offer non-US landline numbers. It's not clearly stated on their website if it is possible, but at least in theory you might have more than one number attached to same the mobile phone e.g from US, France and Italy...
The problem with Yackie is that you pay for all received calls, and so far the balance check and topping up the account is possible only via the website. Thus, you're risking running out of the credit, especially when you don't have frequent access to internet. With CBW's 800 # used to forwarding your calls there's no such a risk since it's a postpaid service - your credit card will be charged after calls, you don't have to make an advance payment(prepaid).


If by "messages" you mean "text messages" aka SMS, you can receive them for free. It doesn't matter if you choose an "international" SIM card like UM, or SIM cards from national operators in France and Italy. But of course, you must remember some facts:
1) No matter if you use CBW or any service of that kind (i.e. with a US number forwarded to a mobile phone number in another country), text messages must be sent to the mobile phone number assigned to your SIM card, not to the US number. This rule applies to UM and to national SIM cards from France, Italy or any other country as well.
Yackie SIM cards use Israeli numbers for SMS sending/receiving.
2) Basically you can make a voice call from any country to any other country in the world. But international SMS interchange is generally possible only between networks which signed so-called roaming agreements. Even in that case, messages don't need to go through e.g. in this thread Matha told that he couldn't send messages from T-Mobile USA to UM (despite there's a roaming agreement between T-Mo and FL1, the "real world" operator of UM).
3) If you want to have messages sent to your mobile phone as e-mails (e.g. to 423663012345@united-mobile.com), forget it! Since receiving messages in Europe is free, such e-mail2sms forwarding is very rare, since neither sender nor "addressee" would pay for such a service :).

Saw the mention of Voicestick. Thanks for the kind words. I am the VP of Marketing for i2telecom the parent company of Voicestick.

I discovered this board a few weeks ago as I was trying to come up to speed with the needs of the international travler.

This board teaches me so much.

If I can return the favor to anyone about issue, question, or problem please feel free to get with me. Either an email bnicklin@i2telecom.com or just post something.

Again, thanks to all of you. I will get smart about your issues faster then I could have hoped for.

Bruce Nicklin

I am another (happy) user of voicestick. I used to use VoipBuster but I found I couldn't use all the time before it expired. I bought the "stick" but haven't had a change to use it much as all the public PC's I run across since then haven't let one use a usb port.

I guess this is off topic, but what the hey :)

I'm new to this site, so if this is not the right place for my question, please let me know, or repost it elsewhere. I've read through this and several other posts, and I am unclear about a few things, which perhaps I overlooked in my reading.
1) Callbackworld seems the cheapest way to go for international calls. If I understand correctly, for someone to call me from the US, they use the toll-free number and pin. If I call the US, I can use the callback feature. But, I will be in Portugal and France, both of which have toll free numbers. So, is it best to call those toll-free numbers to call the US? How about to call within Portugal or France, or between them?

2) SMS does not appear to be covered by any of the callbackworld options. Is that correct?

3) Is there any particular reason to use United Mobile with Callbackworld, as opposed to one of the other international cards? GeoSim appeared to have better rates for direct calls and SMS, with no setup charge, though perhaps a bigger initial outlay. Does CBW work w/ any of them?

4) Sometimes I think I'm obsessing endlessly over what will turn out to be maybe $100 out of a several thousand dollar vacation. But, it's entertainment! :D

Thank you for any help.

Suggest you review the Americans going to Europe thread under EUROPE. You might consider national cards for the 2 countries -- unless you have already invested in an international card.

Are you COMPELLED to use a cell phone? Land line calls are almost always less expensive.

Now, on to your questions....

I believe CBW also work swith 09, the Icelandic carrier and the rates are cheaper than the UM cards from Liechtenstein. 09 also has free inbound.

Yes, you care correct about giving out your PIN2DEST PIN and a US party calling you.

I don't think the toll free #s in FR and PT are cheaper FROM YOUR CELL PHONE. As long as you have free inbound, the UM rate is 14 cents and the the 09 rate is 12 cents (I believe), so WITH THE CELL, I believe that will be cheaper IF THAT IS ALL YOU USE.

CBW does not deal in SMS messages.

I would imagine CBW will work with any international card; you must have FREE INBOUND however to take advantage of the low rates. Do the Isle of Man cards have free inbound in FR and PT? I don't think so.

You might be obsessing..... How many minutes of outbound and inbound calls as well as SMS messages do you think you will use while in Europe and what will that cost you? Tally that up at US roaming rates and that is the MAX you would spend. If you don't already have some kind of international SIM, that will be an initial $50 investment or so PLUS any CBW calls and any top ups you need AND don't forget the regular calling cards. Compare.

It is always good to have a PLAN B. My US (ATT, MCI, etc) and German toll free calling cards DID NOT WORK AT ALL in the hotel we stayed in (total 10 nites).

Stan

The CBW rate from USA to "Iceland Celluar" (which is the numbering range of 09 SIMs) is 15 cents whereas to all Liechtenstein numbers (thus UM too) is 14 cents. 12 cents/min is offered in some tariff plan from a company (similar to CBW) named Enlinea. Anyway, the CBW rate is still a good deal, I think.

As to rates for toll-free access numbers versus those applicable using callback, the following seems to be true (at least in Europe):
1) the cheapest is callback when using a landline;
2) next is the toll free access number;
3) the most expensive is callback when using a mobile phone.
Using toll free access numbers is convenient when you travelling, because you don't have to predefine to which numbers callback should go. Problems may occur because those access numbers may not be available, and, even if available, not free from payphones, mobile phones or hotel phones.

Of course, you can also make calls via CBW to the country you're in or to any other country, but rates are always higher than for calls from the same location to USA. It's because CBW is USA-based and all calls are (at least from the "pricing" point of view :) routed via USA).

AFAIR, most Manx cards has free inbound calls in the entire EU. However, I don't think it's a good idea to use Manx cards together with CBW since the CBW rate USA->UK Cellular is as much as 40.4 cents.

Why? No connection to the access numbers, no tone dialing or so?

Most german hotels block 0800 access because they earn a fortune with ridduculous phone rates and want to prevent the use of calling cards.

Chris

Actually, all my calls on O9 via enlinea to the USA have been billed at 10? us per minute rounded of course in 6 second intervals.

yes with one minute minimum and then six seconds! Excellent rates!

To give Karen some actual data:

I just spent a week in Netherlands/Belgium/France with a UM SIM card and used Callbackworld for calls.

Total 109.1 minutes of calls in Europe and to the USA.
Total cost $15.21 for Callbackworld
Total cost $0 for UM

Average cost per minute = $0.14

Jim Hanlon

That's very impressive! Majority of those minutes are probably incoming minutes which are not charged to you but the caller. For calling back to the USA, UM via CBW cannot be beat. I would have to think most of your outgoing calls were back to the USA. Since it will definitely cost a whole lot more to call anywhere else.

Having said that, hopefully the people that called you used a calling card with good rates.

Actually like I said O9 with enlinea beats UM with CBW 10? to 14?...

Actually I was very pleasantly surprised to see that calls using CBW to European landlines are not that terribly expensive and in many cases even cheaper than using a local sim...example according to web site a call from Liechtenstein to a French landline is $0.142/minute with the usual 6 second billing interval...calls to local French numbers using a French sim in France are much more expensive...of course it is a lot simpler to simply dial the French number minus the lead 0 than to endure the double callback and have to dial 33 0 whatever (just kidding!)....

Using CBW from any western European country to Australian landline $0.149/minute US...making UM with CBW a good deal for Australians as Australia is a UM no charge for roaming country.....

Don't overlook these big advantages of CBW...

That's good to know that 09 even has better rates.

That's true regarding CBW with UM to European landlines. I made a few calls to UK land lines with my UM number using CBW on a recent Caribbean cruise. I was expecting to see like $0.50/min when I checked online. To my surprise it was just $0.14/min. I had to look at the rate table just to verify that was the actual rate.

On a side note, compared to most of the other international sims, it seems like UM offers free incoming calls in quite a few caribbean countries.

You shouldn't be too surprised that they are that cheap; there are about 40 or 50 countries that have landlines roughly as cheap as US landlines with many providers. Don't forget too that using callback from a landline where you are staying will be even cheaper, like from 8c CBW, 6c Enlinea, 4c Voipfone or Mywebcalls.

Actually, of the 109.1 minutes, only 4.6 were incoming calls. Calls within Europe were 14 cents per minute as were the calls to the USA.

(Side note: The reason that incoming calls were so little is that the CBW PIN2DEST did not work until Brian at CBW intervened.)

Jim Hanlon

If you are a frequent traveler then the best phone service for you is VoIP. And avail of unlimited monthly calls and lower call rates.