Vodaphone Spain pay as you go account transfered to UK, and rest of Europe? Possible?
 

Vodaphone Spain pay as you go account transfered to UK, and then rest of Europe? Possible?

I have a Tmobile pay as you go account from the USA as well (just in case it's easier to transfer with Tmobile than it is with Vodaphone).

I have an international mobile problem to consider

I have several SIM cards in my collection from traveling around the world (i.e. spending 6-10 weeks in different countries). I have a Vodaphone pay as you go number/SIM from Spain, and a Tmobile equivalent from the USA. I used these numbers on my triband Nokia 3000 series phone througout Spain, and Morocco (no problems, though Morocco was really expensive). In the USA, I have no problems with Tmobile, but it was really expensive in Canada. The numbers are still active, and will be so for quite some time. There is about $20 credit on the prepay account I have with Vodaphone Spain, and $60 with Tmbolie. NOte: The SIM cards are in my pocession. I don't use the services anymore because it's too expensive here in London.

My question is how can I adapt, upgrade, or modify my current Spain Vodafone or USA Tmobile pay as you go accounts, SIM cards, and numbers to to use in Europe (starting here in London). How does it work?

Remember, my goal here to make really cheap calls (no more than 30UScents/minute) to mobile numbers in Europe. I wish to use my current phone, stay on the same network, use prepay, and figure this all out.

I plan to hop around Europe for the next 2 years (spending at least 1 month in each country).

Thanks for any and all advice

No, despite the same name, the SIMs are on different networks and none can be ported to a different country. You could use them at roaming rates, but as you've already decided, there isn't much point as it would be fairly wasteful. Maybe you could sell or exchange them.

From the UK, you have a choice of SIMs to make calls to European landlines, USA and Canada from 3 or 4 pence a minute, such as T-mobile with the callthrough provider Yourcallworld, or IDT Mobile, Lebara or Nomi. Calls from those to European mobiles start at around 10p to 15p a minute or so, or you can explore callthrough services perhaps from VoIP providers

If you call a lot of foreign mobiles, then O2 UK has an option with 100 minutes of international calls free for a month in which you top up by £15 or more, then the credit still to spend. I look forward to trying this to Liechtenstein or somewhere even more expensive, but not yet as prepaid SIMs don't support call diversion ...

Travelling throughout Europe, the EU countries' networks have adopted the standard Eurotariff of 59 cents outgoing, 28 cents incoming or something better. Potentially cheaper deals are Vodafone Passport, or the 3 networks with cheaper tariffs anyway and free roaming on some sister networks, or O2's My Europe Extra, with a monthly fee then free incoming calls, lending it to potential use with callback services.

There are several global roaming SIMs with either free incoming calls in several countries, or with a landline number and charged call forwarding to the SIM. You'll find plenty of discussion of these on here, with problems with one or two at the moment or in the recent past

But it will still turn out cheaper to get a local SIM in quite a few of these countries, sometimes in conjunction with callthrough or callback providers, and especially as cheaper mvno providers seem to be springing up all the time.

If you have all those SIM's and want to be travelling then I am sure you will make plenty of use of them then. There is no point trying to 'convert' them (and as has been pointed out this is not even possible). As Andy has mentioned it is worth picking up new cheap SIM's in the UK for while you are here. In most case these only cost a few pounds, include credit and if you know what you are doing international calls are extremely cheap.

If you really wanted to make use of your Vodafone Spain SIM before you even get there, you can activate Passport on it. In this case, if you use it in most European countries, you will pay local rates plus a one off €1 flat rate per call. If people call you on your Spanish number you can recieve the call anywhere in Europe and you only pay €1 per call to receive the call! This can be useful if you know people in Spain and are expecting calls from them whilst you are travelling or in my case if you need a 'Spanish contact number' (for work or otherwise) whilst you are in the UK or elsewhere.

One thing to note: With Vodafone Passport Spain, the call cap is at 20minutes. With Vodafone Passport UK , the call cap is a more generous 60minutes. After this you pay normal roaming rates.

ok thanks for all that

I should mention i don't really need people to call me from the places i have already visited (ie. USA, Spain). I don't plan to revisit those countries in the next decade, so let's forget about them. Also, receiving calls aren't all that important to me, neither is SMS.

What's important to me is making outgoing calls to mobiles in each respective country I visit.

For example, I'm going to spend 2 months in UK (I will be calling UK mobiles, and that's about it - therefore outgoing calls to mobiles are the seller for me.

I am looking for the cheapest outgoing rates/minute to mobiles in the uk, and then keep those rates going to the next 10 or so european countries i plan to visit (i.e. norway, sweden, finland, holland, germany, etc...)

The idea of recieving a call for 1 euro per call seems too expensive to me. This vodafone passport option sounded good until you mentioned the 1euro flat rate per call.

As such, I feel inclined to either continue purchasing local SIMS in each country I visit (thus adding to my collection of old SIMS) or buy a world SIM (like TRAVELSIM)

If that is the case then don't use roaming at all! It is by far cheapest for you to just to buy cheap prepaids in every country you visit. It may be best to research them here on this site and order some in advance on the internet if you have adresses/contacts in the countries you are visiting. In many countries you will get an equal amount of credit to what the card costs. e.g. a €10 SIM pack may include €10 of credit, or you may even get a SIM for free!

There is so much choice here in the UK and depends on if you will make long calls or short ones and at what times. If it's a bit of everything and mainly mobiles (and not landlines) you will be calling consider http://www.asda-mobile.com. Calls with their prepaid card costs 16p/min for the first 3 min of calls per day to any mobile and then 8p/min after that!

When you move onto the next country, come back here and check whats new. Things change all the time.

ok thanks i will just keep buying local sims in each country i visit.

asda is for uk only right/ i assume in norway (my next stop), i will have to switch it to a norway equivalent.

my calls are always outgoing, short, (anytime of day), are are almost always to mobiles (on all networks). Most of my calls are for the purposes of setting up a rendezvous. SMS and other features are non-important.

i also use voipwise, and before it (webcalldirect) for internet calls. The rates are the cheapest i have ever seen (landlines are free, for example).

I need a SIM for emergency calls on the street. The only other option was using payphones with calling cards. Now, I know i can just switch SIMS over, and over.

But, what to do with the old SIMS?

I have USA, MEXICO, Hong Kong, and Spain (some of which still have credit and are valid).

By the way, I think Tmobile prepay tariffs are cheaper than Asda, no?
http://www.asda-phones.co.uk/tariff_...10&tc=14&stg=2

Well it all depends on how many minutes you will talk in a day. T-Mo's cheapest deal is 15p/min. Asda is 16p/min but after 3 mins of collective calls in a day the rate halves. That does not happen with T-Mobile. It stays at 15p. If you are expecting to make more than 4mins of calls on any day Asda is cheaper. If not, it is only 1p/min more expensive! See: http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobil...home_paygplans and look at the call costs to call other networks!

With regards to your other points:

You are right: Voipwise (part of Betamax) will give you the cheapest calls by far for landlines etc. There are many brands of the same company to chose from. For a smaller outlay you could consider voipraider. The min topup is US$10 (less than €10 needed on other brands).

As I said, by the time you are ready to go to Norway, bin your Asda card and research what local SIM will be best for there here on prepaidgsm. If you are really only considering making very few calls "emergency-only" type calls throughout your whole stay in any country and not getting to be using it for incoming or SMS, you could really consider a single roaming SIM. There are quite a few that will let you call from anywhere in Europe to anywhere for around 40c/min.

With regards to what you can do with your other cards why not flog them off here or on ebay?

When ASDA says the rate will be halved, is that calculated per day or per call?

As for the global sim, I am considering it but which one is best? Probably one without a setup/connection fee per call, and the cheapest outgoing per minute rate to mobiles around the world (with europe (including east europe) as the priority). I am moving in an easterly direction (next major stops are all of Europe, then the New European countries, Middle East, Asia, and finally Australia. The Americas are least important).

How do I compare the best global SIM vs. local SIMS (in each country) for the type of calls I plan on making. What's the deciding factor?

Asda for example is really cheap per minute, and the SIM itself is almost free (so it sounds perfect). If it's possible to find ASDA equivalents in most countries around the world, then what's the point of purchasing a Global SIM (and its expensive per minute rates)?

As for ebay, I have never used it (so it may be complicated for me and I don't have a physical address (that doesn't change every month)...

By the way, what's flog?

I can't understand this question. It's all on the site anyhow! If you call person A for 2 mins. This call will cost you 2x16p = 32p. If you then call person B for 2 mins. This call will cost you 16p + 8p =24 mins. If you then make any other call for 10 mins that call will cost you 80p.

Deciding factors: Price, card validity, incoming calls free in which country etc. It's all here on the site. You'll have to look for it a bit first or I could write volumes. Just remember though you say incoming doesn't bother you, in most cases calls are made via a callback mechanism.

Even if not considering a Global SIM, with roaming with a normal local SIM is fairly cheap these days. e.g. UK o2 MyEuropeExtra calls are 25p/min from anywhere and to anywhere in Europe.

Well that's what I said initially. Thats definately what I would do. Prepaid SIM packs are dirt cheap or even free pretty much anywhere these days (well apart from the Americas).

As you say!
Sell

ok i understand its calculated per day, which is best. i assumed each call was 16p for the first 3 minutes, and any successive minutes were reduced. Then a new call would start at 16p again for the first 3 minutes, and so on. Im glad I was wrong.

I'm curious about this callback feature. Does that mean everytime I want to make a call, I have to answer a call first? This appllies to world sims only, right? Or does Asda do that too? Ive never used SIMS like that before.

I have to decide now whether to use TravelSIM (which is around 20p/min to most European mobiles) + free incoming (and no setup), or desposible SIMS in each country.

Regarding selling SIMS, I checked that sub-forum forum and it's pretty empty. Do people really buy OLD sims?

Callback: This is how most international roaming SIMs work. National SIM's (like Asda) do not do this. When doing a callback call, in most cases, you will not notice anything too different! You dialled number as normal (either from the adress book or direct) and then push send/green/go. Then your screen will probably go blank and then your phone will start ringing a few seconds later. This will then be your outgoing call.

TravelSIM is not the only one. Have you seen the full comparison here?:
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html

In case you hadn't noticed you will also find on this site the prices of SIM's in all the countries you want to go to. http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/operators.html

Regarding your final question. Most people do not normally buy anything unless they see it as having value to them and at a good price. You say some of your SIM's still have $60 of credit on them. At the right price sure someone will buy it off you! However regarding some of your other SIMs (like national European SIM's), these are so cheap these days that it is little point in buying second hand. Also your buyer would have to be certain that the SIM's are still valid and still have the said credit on them!

hi i decided on travelsim because of comparison here
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/int/compare.html

Perhaps you know something about travelsim not mentioned there. It has the lowest per minute rate for outgoing calls (20p/min), no setup fee (unlike united mobile), free incoming from europe, and credit included in the initial purchase).

Maxroam has the same outgoing rate but with too many exceptions, and half the credit included in the initial purchase.

One thing i dont understand on either SIMSis the billing period? 60/60, 30/30. What does that mean?

The first number means the minimum charged time, the other for subsequent units. So per minute billing units would be 60/60, whereas 30 seconds minimum, then 6 second units, would be 30/6.

so then TravelSIM is the international SIM for me...

Good luck with the hectic travel schedule! Did you settle for Asda here in the UK?

Yes, i will get the ASDA SIM.

I also have an emergency international phone card (to use with payphones, and a toll-free number).

And finally, I use VOIP (like voipwisw), but one problem I noticed with Voipraider (which one of the cheapest I found online) is that I can't use my credit card to top-up credit. Voipwise allows me to use U-cash, and some other VOIP sites only say I can pay with Western Union (which is not going to happen).

I found Webacall, which has low rates (and they say I can pay with Visa), which makes sense to me. Why I can't pay using credit card on all those sites, I don't know.

I just topped up a VoIPraider account 3 days ago using a credit card. I don't understand what is happening with yours? VoIPwise is the same company anyhow (all part of Betamax) and can also be topped up by credit card. It may be country specific depending on where your card is issued. You could try and open a new VoIP account and specify a new country, though the country field is always filled in for you.

Yes, well my IP is still in Morocco, but I have tried putting in Canada, and UK and the options remain the same. I think the site is sensing my IP location and automatically disqualifying me from using credit cards. How stupid.

They just lost a customer.

Are you going to visit Poland?
So, does this card have a tool-free access number in Poland? If so, please tell me what exactly the number is - there may be some issues when calling it from payphones...

As to using SIMs from one EU country in another in order to use remaining credit - of course, it's more expensive than using local SIMs. However, the "eurotariff" sets an upper limit for costs of EU calls to at most 49 eurocents outgoing/24 incoming + national VAT(15-25%, depending on the country). So, I think than it's better (=less troublemaking) to you to use the remaning $20 on Vodafone Spain in another EU country than to look for a person willing to buy the SIM.
BTW, terms and conditions for roaming of some EU operators may extend the coverage of the "eurotariff" to some non-EU countries like Switzerland, Norway, Iceland etc.

Yes, I will eventually visit Poland (but Scanadanvia is next).

The card is here,
http://www.comfi.com/Phone-Card/Chopin

it has toll-free numbers in many countries, including Poland. The following number can be called countrywide using a payphone (or at least that's what it's supposed to do). 00-800-111-4553.

The number in the UK is 0-800-358-7120.

I bought this card because it has per second billing, no connection fee, no maintenance fee, toll-free numbers (in many countries), no taxes, and it's valid for at least 3 months.

The only part I don't like is the payphone surcharge per call (99UScents), and the outgoing rate to mobiles (20p/minute), but remember it's billed by the second (or that's what they advertise).

I bought this phone card in vain until I heard about the ASDA SIm card in the UK. I will purchase the SIM, and not use this card (except for when my cellphone doesnt work), but then I will still have my VOIP software (via net), so I don't know if I will ever use this card.

Some of those Comfi accounts can be switched to a different brand with them; I haven't checked if that is one

That's what I supposed. 00-800 numbers are not free in Poland. They are charged "per call" from landlines and "per minute" from Orange SIMs (not available from other local SIMs). To call such numbers from payphones you must have a chip payphone card and the call will cost one "billing unit" per call. I also suppose that those 00-800 payment rules won't change by the time you arrive here :-(

Well, it seems that using this card for national calls in Poland simply makes no sense. At the current exchange rate, if you get ANY Polish SIM, you'll pay AT MOST about 35 US cents/min to any national landline or mobile number with per-second billing and without any per call surcharge.

This just proves how useless phone cards are then.

They advertise Global Access Numbers nowadays, they don't even call them toll-free anymore (probably because they know their cards don't work toll free from payphones).

I guess I will buy a Polish SIM on arrival, and consider my Chopin phone card purchase a mistake (lesson learned).

In the UK, tmobile offers free SIMS, and Asdamobile sells sims for 3 pounds. Is there a company offering free SIMS (via the post mail) in Poland?

I now feel more inclined to stop using phone cards alltogether and depend on local SIMS everywhere I go.

If you do have one of these... you can make very cheap international calls through them e.g. USA, Canada at 3p/min. (even cheaper than calling the UK) In most cases much cheaper than an international phonecard. If you search for yourcallworld here in the forum you will find out how.

Well, they could hire a real toll free (=local 0 800) number for use in Poland which could be available also from payphones and even mobile phones. However, this would require some arrangment with local operators. Setting a 00-800 number is an access number for Poland is much easier, I suppose. Of course, it won't be toll free but who cares :-P?

You're right. However, the Chopin basic per minute rate 55 cents/min for Poland to Polish mobile phones (disregarding the payphone per-call surcharges 99 cents + local payphone access >15 cents per call) is better than "direct" rate payphone to Polish mobile :-). It's because payphones are pretty expensive here and basically for any destination a better mobile tariff can be found.


Yes, at of today, Orange, but sends to Polish addresses only. However, all SIM brands can be easily purchased at 5 to 30 PLN (moreless $2 to $12) and usually 90-100% of the price is available credit (100% on all cards >=20 PLN).

In some countries there is some beaurocracy mess when purchasing even a prepaid SIM (so far not in Poland). Are you prepared for this ;-)?

i think i have no choice but to buy prepaid sims in every country i go to, and use those in combination with the cheapest voip available at the time.

The hell with Chopin