question about usa sim cards
 

The credit in usa sim cards has a validity of 30 days... But after these 30 days, I lose only the credit or also the sim dies?
Sorry for my bad english!

Card validity dies after 30 days :(

With tmobile, the sim dies 90 days after the credit expires. Also, tmobile sim cards can have a validity up to a year from last topup. It just depends on what level it is and how much it has been topped up. Check their website for more details.

And ATT sim card? Only 30 days? After this this I lost also the number?

USA prepaids are notorious for their short lives. Many must be topped up every 30 days. The only one with anything like decent lifetime is T-Mobile after you add $100 worth of credit (a.k.a. "Gold Rewards"). After that you only have to add a minimal ($10) top-up every 12 months.

There is another alternative: SpeakOut from 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven is a chain of variety/convenience stores. You have to buy the phone from them (e.g. a Nokia 1600) in order to get the SIM, but the airtime lasts 1 year. If you already have a 850/1900 band phone you may be able to buy only the SIM on eBay. Once you have a SIM you can add airtime in increments as small as $25.

They run on AT&T's GSM network using an MVNO, Ztar. Their website seems to be under construction right now so I don't have all the details, but I do use their Canadian product which is similar.

The SpeakOut website has been "under construction" for years. It's true, it has a 365-day expiration, but as you have to buy the phone (there are no SIM-only kits) the upfront cost is quite high. Might as well get a v195 from TMO and go Gold Rewards immediately.

The Canadian Speakout is also an offer that looks good at first glance. Except that the 365-day expiration is not all that it seems -- as a lack of account activity for 120 days will end the account. Since there's no roaming, it's not possible to keep it going unless you're in Canada every 2 1/2 months.

According to this thread on HoFo, as little as $20 with $10 airtime. The phones that come with US SO are locked (the ones in Canada are not.) And AFAIK you can top up airtime using AT&T's website so you can keep this SIM alive from overseas.

Where did you get that information? AFAIK there's a 99¢/month "911 fee" but the card lasts a full year providing there is enough airtime credit. Once the year ends you have something like 90 days to top it up before the SIM expires.

Actually the only way to top up the Canadian SO SIM is to buy a voucher at a 7-11 store in Canada and then validate it from a SO phone. So it's effectively useless to anyone outside Canada. Unfortunately there are no good GSM options for visitors to Canada thanks in large part to Rogers' monopoly. (Perhaps the best option for visitors is to use a US T-Mobile SIM then pay 69¢/min to roam in Canada :( )

OT? - 2003 visit to Canada
 

Probably off topic....

My wife and children were in Canada in 2003. I had purchased a prepaid Fido SIM from eBay USA. That worked fine. After they returned, I sold it on eBay to someone else. At that time our T-Mo prepaids did not roam in Canada.

I take it the situation has changed since then. I think Rogers and Fido are now one company. I am a bit surprised your regulators would allow such a merger to result in a monopoly.

=======================

As to the US GSM prepaids, I often look at eBay.de. You can always find ATT or T-MO US prepaids being offered there. I don't know how well they sell, but I suspect there is some demand for them. Thus, if a visitor purchased a US prepaid SIM, I think it would be possible to sell it on his/her native eBay or elsewhere to someone else rather than try to keep the # alive. The $100 upfront investment for 1000 minutes might not be everyone's cup of tea.

I made a very costly mistake buying 2 Malta prepaids and trying to keep them alive. I lost one where I had invested > $50 and sold the other at a huge discount. Would have been cheaper to buy new ones or use my international SIMs.

Stan

Yes Rogers bought Fido and now they are both the essentially the same. There are two developments that may open up Canada to more GSM competition:

1. There is a spectrum auction in progress. Something like 40% of that spectrum is designated for new players only. It's highly unlikely that the winner of such an auction would use anything but GSM. Also, the incumbent wireless providers are required to lease towers and cell repeaters to new players for at least 5 years at "reasonable" rates in order to give them a chance to succeed.

2. Telus, the main western Canadian telco, is currently CDMA-only. However there is speculation that they will start to convert their network to GSM, starting in western Canada, in order to participate in lucrative roaming revenue from foreign visitors to the upcoming Vancouver Olympic games. (Rogers charges something like $2 or $3 per minute for roaming and gets away with it because there is no GSM alternative carrier.)

Rogers and Telus are not a monopoly. They have the only significant GSM network in Canada (there is a tiny one in the Arctic), but there are CDMA competitors and the new spectrum up for auction will likely be GSM.

I think you meant Fido, not Telus. They are as far as GSM is concerned, which is all that visitors from overseas care about.

They are only contenders if you have to buy a new phone just for your NA visit. If you already have an unlocked quadband GSM phone then a Rogers, Fido, SpeakOut (or Petro-Canada Mobility) SIM plus airtime is all you need. And even if you have a 900/1800 GSM phone you're more likely to consider a GSM solution because you're more familiar/comfortable with it than CDMA.

However the auction ends in July. And they you have to wait for the winners to roll out their offerings. Hopefully one of them will be yak. Then we'll start to see some real price competiion, especially on foreign roaming.

But we're digressing ;)

From the SpeakOut Canada brochure (available as a PDF on their website somewhere):

"Your mobile number may be cancelled if your account has no activity for 120 consecutive days. Please contact Speak Out WirelessSM Customer Care to establish a new mobile number for your account. Mobile number cancellation does not affect your account balance and expiration. A service activation fee and new wireless phone number may be required to reactivate service."

Thank you. That, however, is the Canadian service. The US service, which is provided by AT&T rather than MVNO Ztar, may have different terms. (There are other differences between the two offerings.) Nevertheless, a useful caution for occasional users. I guess we'll have to wait for the resurrection of 7-11's website to find out for sure.

I bought 2 AT&T simcards on eBay, very cheap, but when I went to NYC (about 2 months after I received the cards here in Italy) both the cards were not working. The phone was just saying "no service" and there was no instruction at all about how to activate. Fortunately NYC is full of wifi hotsposts so I even didn't loose my time at an AT&T shop trying to make them work....

caveat emptor
 

My experience.... Ebay SIMs are often sold when they have very short life spans remaining. Without a refill the cards expire. I suspect the 2 months was too long and the cards had simply expired as you did not top up.

Ebay serves as a "dumping ground" or sales area of last resort for many outlets. "If we cannot sell them to our walk-in customers for the full price, we can at least sell them for a pittance on Ebay."

You often see outdated, obsolete, returned or refurbished models of various items being offered on Ebay.

My opinion.

Stan

Yeah, I guess your opinion is right, Stan. Or simply you needed to activate them at some AT&T shop, but I really had not the mood to spend time in a phone shop and I didn't try that time. Quite strange there was no instruction at all on the card, except how to refill, in English and Spanish.

AT&T cards need to be activated. Unlike Tmobile prepaid cards where you can find already activated prepaid cards on ebay, you will rarely find pre-activated AT&T cards. I am quite certain you bought unactivated cards and they need to be activated. Just like tmobile new cards, the AT&T cards can also be activated online, or on the phone without human intervention at all.

I have no idea how could I activate them on the phone, they didn't register to any network, there were no instructions and no sim-menu. Maybe online or at some shop.

On the phone as in another phone. For next time, Just call the 800 numbner listed on the card and it will ask for the sim #. Same thing online.

Online activation page:

https://gophoneactivations.wireless....electType=PAYG

Ok, so to activate it by phone I needed another phone! :D But with an Italian card on roaming I cannot access 800 numbers. So I had to do it online before leaving... stupid me! You also told me I could do it online HERE...

You can also call US 800 numbers for free via Skype.

You can also call Canadian/US 800/866/877/888 numbers from payphones for free, generally.

Oh sure, but I didn't know which number to call, there was nothing written on the card...