Prepaid UK SIM
 

This may have been asked and answered, but I'd like some suggestions. I'll be in the UK in May 2007. I have an unlocked quad-band phone and use T-Mobile (phone and data) in the US. Roaming in the UK is US $0.99/min and $0.015/KB for data.

What are my options for buying a prepaid UK SIM that offers less expensive calls to the U.S. and also offers GPRS? Should I buy the card before I go or when I am in the UK? And finally, how does one add money to these cards while traveling?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I have a vodaphone sim card. I have the passport option on the card. You can wait and buy in the UK, sometimes it is free. You can call CS and give them your U S credit card number, but you must give them a UK address. this all of 15 min. to complete. If you want to buy before hand use this company they maild to me here in the US. www.freedom-mobiles.co.uk/ They are very good and shipping is free.

Well there are several plans that are very cheap to call to the USA but you'll have to get somebody more familiar with GPRS....

Vodafone is not a good option if calling from the UK to the US is one of your priorities...rates are very high.

As it stands now....there are 2 excellent plans for calling the USA. One is called Mobile World offered by Carphone Warehouse...sim card pack is free...you pay only for time...calls to the USA and Canada are 5p/minute (billed in 60 second intervals alas) with a brief period during the day when it becomes 7.5p/minute.....rates are good but undesirable feature is it becomes invalid after 90 days of non use and you can't get around that as it does not allow roaming but if you're not paying for the sim, I don't see that as a big deal...you can always buy another one next time you get to UK.

Currently T Mobile UK has a good deal too.....the sim card itself is not very expensive (comes with no air time) but for £2 you can buy 50 minutes of airtime to the USA and Canada which is apparently timed in 1 second intervals...this special expires after 60 days but so what...the sim card itself doe snot expire so you simply buy another 2 quid package and of course T Mobile UK allows roaming so you can send a sms to keep it active. It is a good deal.

Another okay deal, not as good as the ones mentioned, comes from Virgin Mobile.....sim card costs 10 quid but comes with quid worth of air time....calls to the USA and Canada are 20p/minute timed in 1 second intervals with a minimum of 5p per call...also if you are also making calls within the UK costs are 15p/minute for first 5 minutes of use each day and then it drops to 5p/minute and the calls to the USA and Canada count towards the determination of the 5 minute billing period....not too bad but right now I prefer the T Mobile UK plan...BTW since Virgin Mobile allows roaming and since it does not deactivate until 365 days have passed, it can be kept active by simply sending a sms message wherever you are (any billing period will do) or as I did, I downloaded a ring tone for 9p and kept the card active from outside the UK!

Thanks for the suggestion. I looked at the www.freedom-mobiles.co.uk/ site. The lowest GPRS rate (£4 per Mb) is available through Orange.

Does anyone know if a UK Orange Pay As You Go SIM Card can be activated and topped off while I am still in the US?

if your interested i have some spare unused uk sim cards for trade, will swap ya 1 for 1 for US prepaid sim cards, say tmobile uk for tmobile us, or mobile world uk for cingualr/ boost etc?

pm for details

O2 is pretty good too. Spend 5 pounds and henceforth, all calls to North America are 20p (while in the UK at least). O2 seems to have the largest coverage footprint in the UK, too.

It roams in Canada, and presumably most of the US, so you can send a text message or use a bit of GPRS data to keep it active. You also get a free call to the UK every week (one minute) so that might keep it active, too, without any expenditure. You only need to do something every 180 days to keep it running.

It doesn't roam on Alltel (USA 590) but it does work on Rogers here in Canada. I haven't taken it to Cingular or T-Mobile USA coverage.

Most European sims have roaming agreements in the USA with T Mobile USA and Cingular....the problem could be, not saying it will be, is the phone. Up until now, quad band phones started out sort of as a Motorola thing and several other manufacturer's have done a bit of work with them but they haven't really caught on and therein lies the rub....tti band phones come in 2 varieties (well short of Heinz BTW)...850/1800/1900 which are made for North American consumption and are sort of usually not the latest...companies introduce their new tri bands with 900/1800/1900 where they get the most bang for the buck (or quid or whatever vernacular is used to describe euro) that is places where everybody has to buy GSM phones...a good portion of the USA market doesn't use GSM...

Result is Europeans or others coming to the shores of the USA will find large areas of the country lack 1900 GSM coverage (for the most part it isn't a big problem in the big cities and along most interstates) and their mobiles would be useless (unless they bought a US prepaid which might or might not be GSM)...

In a similar vein, Americans travelling to much of the rest of the world have to be careful about this...I read of one person doing her due diligence, buying an unlocked GSM phone on ebay and attempting to use it with a prepaid sim in Croatia and she couldn't get the doggone thing to register on the Croatian netowrk; some of the idiots at mobile phone stores there swore to her the phone was locked (of course it wasn't...if the phone was locked, one gets a message to that effect just as it is turned on and tries to boot up)...the phone she had as an American nokia tri band and one of the problems with Nokia tri bands is they use the same model number for their phones produced for the world market (tri band 900/1800/1900) and the ones modified to work in the USA and some other countries mostly in theAmericas (tri band 850/1800/1900)...lacking the 900 band she was unable to get reception in Croatia as the carriers there are almost all GSM 900.

Same thing might happen if one uses an unlocked American phone and buys a prepaid O2 UK sim....as I understand it, O2 UK is predominantly 900 and so there would be many areas of the UK where a person with an American GSM phone model might buy an O2 UK sim and swear he or she has little or no coverage lacking 900...it probably is not as big an issue when roaming as you can almost always register, in the UK, on some network that operates on 1800 (T Mobile UK is predominantly 1800 which means Virgin Mobile UK is also predominantly 1800 as VM uses TM UK towers; incidentally since Mobile World referred to above uses O2 towers, such a phone would be pretty darn useless if one desired Mobile World; of course one can buy a very cheap dual band (900/1800) at most UK phone stores.

Ah the trials and tribulations caused because the USA was unable to coordinate with the rest of the world (which I understand might have been impossible given the use of the spectrum by other types of communication devices) when this whole cellular explosion hit.

Actually, Mobile World is also on T-mobile.

On O2, it might be worth signing up the International bolt-on, then using a calling card with an Irish access number (5p/min); I used to suggest Bizon as the calling card, but it went up from 2c to 5c; a bit more research to do ...

People coming here and also the rest of Europe might look most at Vodafone Passport and O2 My Europe and My Europe Extra, the latter costing £10 a month and having free incoming calls in over 30 countries, ideal with a callback service.

For now, the Finarea callback service ReturnCall still has 2p/min to UK landllines, quite a few countries' landlines at 5p, and Eu mobiles from 9p. There are work-arounds to get even cheaper than this, using other callthrough and call forward options, but it gets a bit complicated

Someone who intends loads of use might look at 3's option of £15 a month for up to 3000 minutes of international calls. You don't necessarily need a 3g phone now, as it will roam on Orange

Where can one find the 50 minutes for £2 offer from T-Mobile? I don't see it mentioned on their website.

Take a look at http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/personal/p...the-uk/bundles

I bought the UK prepay SIM (no credit included, but there was a separate T-Mobile top-up card in the package), put it in my unlocked GSM phone (and my wife's), entered the unlock PIN code and I get a message that the SIM card is unregistered. I called T-Mobile UK and they told me I need to buy a top up voucher when I get to the UK. I was able to register on My T-Mobile UK, but was never emailed the PIN code to open the account.

Here are my questions:
1) Is there any way to register or activate the T-Mobile UK SIM card in the phone in the US before going to the UK? Am I unable to register it because it's not in the UK or because thereis no credit associated with the account?

2) Is my only option for topping up to buy an e-Voucher when I get there? The T-Mobile UK CSR told me they will only accept UK credit cards. If I buy a top-up T-Mobile UK voucher on eBay, will this work?

Buy a topup voucher on ebay.uk and use that.

I was able to activate my O2 SIM that way (voucher from eBay) so it's worth a try. If T-Mobile UK prepaid roams in the US, you should be able to activate it there.

Damn...I wish these companies would join the 21st century and allow out of country credit cards to be used to top up.....I just can't understand this insistance that the credit card be issued by a UK bank (enforced by requiring the postal code)....the amounts involved simply can't be that much so that fraud is a big issue...if it is, restrict use of non UK credit cards to 10 quid or something like that. It's an idiotic requirement which flies in the face of just what credit cards were set up to do i.e. to do away with problems of currency exchange and national borders for travellers.

Absolutely! OTOH, my brother was able to register his UK issued credit card with Tuyo mobile (Tmobile MVNO) while he was here in January. Having done that, he is able to topup online anytime. Sister did the same online with tmobile payg using her UK issued credit card while here last year.

Now, I have heard of a number of people being able to register a US issued CC with Vodafone UK.

i know studentjetpacks.com offer a pack with SIM cards and other very handy stuff in..if your coming to london, they also give you an Oyster travel card! Though says for students, anyone can use them, and they specialise in providing the most economic jetPacks for the traveller.

Just checked the site for you and they say the sim is activated, so you can get your number before you come to the uk - its with Orange call abroad, costing ONLY 5pence to call the USA from you mobile to moble/landline! wow!

Cehck out www.studentjetpacks.com/jetpacks

Dont forget your umbrella when you come to the UK!!

I just did that. I am in the US. I purchased a T-Mobile top-up voucher from a reliable UK eBay seller. He sent me the 16 digit code. The SIM card "Interactive" program appears on my Windows Mobile phone. There is an option in the program for Prepay topup. It asks for the amount, then the last 4 digits of the card number (which I assume is the 16 digit code). Then it asks for the card security code (which I assume is the SIM card PIN). When I try to enter this information, I get an message that says error sending message.

Is this because the SIM card has not yet registered on T-Mobile in the UK? The customer service rep at T-Mobile UK said that should not make a difference.

I believe you went under the credit card option. Those options sound credit card related. The fact that it asks for the amount and the security code makes me think it's credit card. For voucher topup, just the voucher # is required. There should be an option for voucher topup. And, it should not matter if you are doing it from outside the UK.

The menu only has one option that says 'Prepay topup.' There were no other choices for topping up or using a voucher. I agree it sounds like credit card information that it requested. I may have to call T-Mobile UK Customer Service again.

Apparently there is no option to topup by voucher from the phone. It's either by CC or by calling them on 360

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/personal/p...o-pay-by-phone

This URL says your 16 digits e-voucher can be used by dialing 150. I have no idea if you can call their 150 service # in the States. I am guessing not.

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/personal/p...ay-by-e-top-up

That is correct, but the SIM card won't register in the US, hence I can't use the code until I get to the UK. I am guessing that this SIM can only register by first being activated in the UK.

Does anyone know if the SIM can be activated by T-Mobile UK via a call to their customer service? I registered for My T-Mobile UK, but they won't let me in unless I have the activation code, which must be received by SMS. Since SMS won't work with the SIM unregistered, I can't enter the site.

The simple solution would have been to have the SIM activated/registered before it was sent to me.

There has to be a way to do it from here.

I used to have an Orange UK sim. I bought it on ebay-UK brand new/unregistered. Called the Orange cust. service from here to register it, and they gave me the phone number and also sent it by text. They also gave 1 pound credit.

This is one of the reasons I prefer and will always recommend Virgin UK. No hassles at all. They come preactivated, with roaming, GPRS, and all. Just put the thing in your phone and you are good to go. Mine even came with 5 pound free credit. Besides, it's only 20p/min to call back to the USA.

Ah but with T Mobile UK and their add on, it's only 4p/minute to call back to the USA!

Orange CallAbroad is 5p to USA, Mobile World is 5p, T-mobile has the 4p option mentioned, so Virgin is not the cheapest from the UK, or indeed for a UK SIM roaming in Europe either; it's useful for small amounts of data though.

I called T-mobile CS and asked about this, like did the SIM need to be active here before being exported, which a sealed packet sold on eBay would not be, or should I maybe send another one free which I'd opened first. They said actually they couldn't understand why this wouldn't work. It was suggested that you call them with the voucher code and they will apply it. I said that if the SIM still did not register on the network, then the person doing it might be upset about it.

Try calling them and discussing it again, as the man I spoke to referred to another and answer quite all the questions I asked.

150 is free to call once you get here, but doesn't work from abroad. From abroad they said use +447953966150, but this is a mobile number and will cost more. I'd suggest you call +441707315000, UK office hours, then ask to be transferred to the call centre.

The new but unused SIMs do have a limited shelf life of something like six months or a year, so I'm just wondering if that one has a problem. I had 3 old ones here that I called to check and they said two were expired. I bought a voucher to apply to the other one, but it didn't register on the network; CS applied the credit for me but it still didn't work. In the end they made a note on the account, and we later transferred the credit to a new SIM I received.

So I'm just wondering if the one you have is a bit similar; ask them how old it is, and if it's a problem, I can send you another one free

I have two of these SIMs and neither can register. I don't know if they are expired. I'm waiting for an email reply from T-Mobile UK as to whether they can activate/register the SIMs.

Continuing this saga of trying to register/activate a T-Mobile UK PAYG SIM from the US, here is what I have concluded. It cannot be done without first activating it in the UK (unless I have an expired SIM card). I obtained a top up voucher and had it applied to the phone number by calling T-Mobile UK. That worked, but the SIM would still not activate here in the US. A chargeable call must first be made with the SIM in the UK. Thanks to all who suggested possible solutions.

I also have an unlocked T-Mobile quad-band phone (voice and data plan) and visit the UK each year. My conclusion is that searching for for a prepaid UK GPRS plan that costs substantially less than using T-Mobile's international roaming GPRS rates is about like King Arthur searching for the Holy Grail.

Last year I stopped in an Orange store and bought a SIM card for £5 plus £20 of phone time. I picked Orange after checking PrePaidGSM and because Orange has a lot of stores. I got a UK phone number and it worked fine in my T-Mobile unlocked quadband phone (Motorola V330), but no GPRS. For GPRS I put the USA T-Mobile SIM card back into the phone. To keep GPRS costs down, I found it best to use the phone to access email. Accessing a standard POP3 email on the phone uses fewer kilobytes than tethering to the phone to a laptop.

I recently checked to see if the UK Orange SIM card would still work. Back in the USA, it does still work 11 months after being purchased in the UK. It roams on Cingular's network in the USA, but making a call in the USA (with a UK SIM card) is pretty expensive, £1.30. I believe that the SIM card will expire after one year, unless it is recharged, so I will recharge it on the Orange website just before we leave this year, or get a "top-up" as soon as we arrive in the UK.

The Orange (and other UK operators) prepaid charges are fairly reasonable for voice calls made in the UK to the UK, and for calls to the USA from the UK.

It is good that you have a quadband phone because some of the UK providers (such as Orange) only use the 1800 MHz band.

If you have a laptop on your trip, you might get free WiFi a some places.

Just a point; nice easy way to keep the Orange card active or most any card that requires acitivity every 6 or 9 months or whatever as opposed to these sob's who take away your credit if not re-charged is simply to send one sms message...actually the eu ought to consider outlawing the theft of your credit after a fixed period of time without a re-charge..it is fair to deactivate a card for non use after a fixed period of time provided the money in the account is retrievable by re-instating the account but to simply say after 6 months without a recharge, especially if credit card recharging is banned, is very unfair.

Thanks for your tip. Let me see if I understand this correctly. You have £X.xx left on your prepaid Orange SIM card. Every 6 or 9 months or whatever, you send one SMS message, and the SIM card stays active indefinitely? No need to purchase a Top-Up as long as you still have credit on the SIM card?

That's right. A little bit better than $20 every 60 days, isn't it?

6 months, and an incoming call is good enough; I don't know about incoming sms though

Actually ordinary GPRS usage also does it. If you can access GPRS on your sim(most UK prepaid sims are GPRS active), then you can just log into GPRS and out. On my Virgin - UK sim it costs me less than 10p and that will take care of the "chargable activity" needed every 12 months.

Andy, I'm not sure an incoming call is good enough and it is not a chargeable event (especially if it isn't answered)...I tried that with Mobile World (note a problem with Mobile World is it doesn't allow roaming so I was unable to send a sms, at the end of 90 days, it deactivated....I did try calling into voice mail there (presumablythe call is forwarded to voice mail) and it didn't work) (not that it was a big deal...there was less than 80p lefr in the account and since they don't charge for the sim card getting a new one is not a problem (nobody ever calls me via the direct phone number no matter what it is, generally it is through call forwarding or voicestick).....

but GPRS is a good idea...I downloaded a ring tone for 9p and did that did the trick.

With Vodaphone I send a SMS every 90 days and keeps the sim active,

Help!
 

All that planning for nothing. I'm in the UK, turn on my unlocked quad band phone with a prepay T-Mobile UK SIM and... nothing. No network found, SIM unable to register. The same with my wife's unlocked RAZR.

I stopped in a nearby Carphone Warehouse and the chap tries the SIM cards in his phone. Also nothing. We then tried his O2 card in my phones, they could also not find any network. HOWEVER, when inserting a Vodaphone UK SIM, the phones immediately found the Voadafone network. Does this make sense in terms of which frequencies are being recognized/utilized?

The problem with using a Vodafone SIM is the cost. My T-Mobile US account would be cheaper for calls and GPRS.

If anyone has suggestions as to why the prepaid T-Mobile UK SIMs don't work, I'd be happy to hear them. If I have a chance, I'll stop at a T-Mobile UK store. I saw Orange mentioned in this thread and will see if I can get a prepaid Orange SIM. Any other suggestions?

It sounds like the T-mobile SIMs have expired. What did they say when you called them before, as they should have been able to check the numbers?

I'd persuade them to give you new SIMs, and transfer the credit off your present ones.

As for networks, I don't quite understand what you had happen at the shop. O2 and Vodafone were first of all on 900 MHz, with 1800 added later. Orange and T-mobile only on 1800.

I don't believe they are expired. Yesterday was a bank holiday and the T-Mobile store was closed. I've reverted to roaming and Skype. Thank god for Skype.

Travel to UK
 

I am going to the United Kingdom for work for 2 months. I have an unlocked phone that will work in Europe including UK.

I know my best deal is to buy a SIM when I arrive in UK. Could anyone advise me on the best deals they have seen.

Also - I will be giving my UK cell number out to my work associates in the USA. I will be able to receive their calls for free. However, what is the best value plan/company for my friends in the USA to use when dialing a UK cell phone number?

There have been answers to this in other threads but I'll give you some suggestions. Rates in the UK to the USA can be a bargain and are easy to acquire and of course in most of the country English is widely spoken.:) :)

Start with Mobile World, available at Carphone Warehouse stores only. Sim card is free but you pay for air time. Thus for £10 you get a free sim card and £10 worth of call credit. Calls to both the USA and Canada cost 5p/minute....you get all the "perks" of a local sim namely a UK number and free reception of calls while in the UK. Calls to other UK networks aren't too expensive as well as calls to UK landlines. Disadvantage of Mobile World is limited shelf life (90 day requirement for at least one phone call) and since it doesn't allow roaming, you can't get around that from outside the country. But since the sim is free, if you use up most of the call credit, it's no big deal (unless you feel it's a pain to inform people of your new number) as all you need do is buy new airtime with a new free sim next time you visit. (BTW calls to the USA and Canada between 1900 and 2100 have a 50% surcharge and cost 7.5 p/minute).

Orange has announced Orange Abroad....they charge £1 for the sim cardon the web; don't know how expensive they would be if bought at an Orange store in London. Also feature 5p/minute calls to the USA and Canada with the usual perks. Available at all Orange stores and one would presume any mobile phone store carrying Orange (Carphone Warehouse, phones4u, the link)

T Mobile UK....they were advertising free sim cards on their web site and before I visited London last January, they sent a free sim card to my hotel...do not come with any airtime but a quick visit to any chemist, electronics store and whatever with the swipe card and is easy to fund. Did price it out as £5 for a sim card at a T Mobile UK store.....they have a bundle which you purchase via text message or call to customer service of £2 for 50 minute of call time to the USA and Canada; this seems to be billed in 1 second intervals...validity is 60 days but one would suppose you simply buy another bundle (terms and conditions mention something to the effect only 6 bundles are allowed at one time but I haven't figured out exactly what that means)...

Both Orange and T Mobile UK have reuirements that a billable action take place every 180 days but since they allow roaming you can meet that by downloading a ringtone as I did for 9p (or sending a text message) from the USA to keep sim cards active.

There may be others...O2 UK had a bundle that reduced price of calls to USA to 15p/minute...Virgin Mobile charges 20p/minute for calls to the USA although if you make lots of domestic calls in the UK, a 5 minute call to the USA will reduce domestic rate ot landlines on Virgin Mobile to 5p/minute. Vodafone, although it has a nice program called Vodafone Passport which is somewhat helpful if you are roaming within Europe, charges an arm and a leg, about a quid or even more per minute for calls to the USA so they are not a viable alternative.

There are plenty of choices and with the right choice, calls to the USA along with free reception of calls are very easy when visiting the UK!