Updated List of International GSM Cards/Services
 

It seems that the info on this forum seems to be pretty outdated with regards to International GSM Cards. This is understandable since the companies involved seem to be unstable, frequently change carriers, or go out of business. I wanted to start a thread to list the current BEST card values that are out there.

Note: I don't work for nor am I affiliated with any of these companies in any way. Feel free to add additional cards to the list, or make comments about their service, stability, etc.

Definition of BEST: low cost, not necessarily the lowest cost, but a balance between stability and cost. For example, many people list these "great" cards, but when you look at the rates they are high and not much better and frequently worse than your post-paid international roaming from your home carrier.

Global Roaming (Formerly Celtrek)
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Description: Typical call-back dial-out service with Belgium Mobile Number.
The Good: low rates in many countries compared to many cards, seem to understand that not everything is free and charge reasonable rates for incoming calls. They don't soak you for calls within the USA. Supports data connections. Appears to be the lowest cost provider at the moment.
The Bad: no apparent support for phone numbers in your home country. Data charges are expensive. Seems to be a restart of a company that was failing, or had troubles with their providers. You run the risk of losing your money in your account, like with all International GSM providers.

MAXroam
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Description: Typical call-back dial-out service with Belgium Cell Number.
The Good: lower rates in many countries compared to many cards, though not the lowest. Supports data connections. You can get a local number in your country that rings your phone for USD$1.50/month.
The Bad: Data charges are expensive. You run the risk of losing your money in your account, like with all International GSM providers.


Skype
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Description: this service is useful with an Online Number (aka Skype-In) that you have in your own country or another country where people can call you. You then forward the call to the phone number of your International SIM card.
The Good: makes it convenient to allow people to call a local number to reach you, and this generally means that you can receive phone calls at a lower rate than calling out. Useful if you also carry a laptop, PDA, or Skype phone with you while you travel...then you can use Skype directly to make phone calls if you have wireless internet access at your destination...therefore bypassing GSM calling altogether.
The Bad: Skype might be going away due to software rights issues. Costs $ a year to maintain the number.


Many of the other International GSM Cards out there provide similar call-back dial-out service, but their costs are well over USD$1.00/min in many cases. They might be useful if you are traveling to certain destinations where incoming calls are FREE, and you can get a call-back service or Skype to forward your number to it. Feel free to comment, add, dispute, or list other providers.

I doubt that everyone will warm to your sense of humour

mmm...not sure why you think or what you think I'm joking about. Much of the information on this forum seems to be out of date, including the stickied posts. I've been researching through the various International SIM cards listed on this site and on various websites, and I'm trying to put together a list of good and reasonable cards out there. This is the information I've gathered so far.

generational change in product
 

This is not limited to 'international GSM providers'. I lost money to an USA MVNO. And many would claim AT&T took their money when they invalidated their $10 credit start up cards.

However, what is happening this Summer is a generational change in product. Almost all the surviving companies are working on dual IMSI US/country of choice [usually IOM or UK] SIM cards. Since some companies have not even reached the market yet, we have not fully seen what this will mean. Perhaps it will be a bridge to far for some of the comanies or a bridge they do not survive to cross. We have not really seen too many other than preliminary reports about these products yet either. ekit has at least 7 different cards/plans and some complain about not understanding all the choices. Let us hope these companies stay viable, because they will be the only competition with the national carriers that allow international roaming. I am seeing no move by US MVNOs to work outside of North America and the big North American carriers when they allow international prepaid use charge dearly. Interesting times indeed!

Well, the complaint you are making can be levelled at your own post, which is argumentative, incomplete, or just plain wrong

Yes, of course some of the info is out of date, but that is because the forum has been here a number of years. But most subjects have been reviewed fairly constantly, if you bother to read them in chronological order

Can't even believe you mentioned maxroam. You sure you are not affiliated with them? Go back and look at maxroam's rates then modify your post. Maxroam has very high rates in every country that I compared their sim to other sims. I did not see the cost of DID in any country that is less than 4 euro/month.

I do some occasional travel in the Americas on medical msisions. I just looked up a couple rates for Maxroam and they seemed reasonable compared to many of the other providers where I was finding USD$1.50/min rates. I don't work for any company, I'm a med student. Perhaps each provider has better rates depending on where you are, from what I can find. The two I mentioned seemed to have the best overall price, and I've used Skype before with another International GSM card (estonia based) in the past which worked well, though the GSM provider was expensive. I was excited to see some better prices with providers since I last checked for the Americas.

Any price lower than USD$0.50/min is approaching what I'd call reasonable for dialing out. MaxRoam for calls from the Dominican Republic are USD$0.46/min and incoming are USD$0.24. Global Roaming has better rates from what I can find, but they seem to be a little unstable (like most of the providers).

Just some other stuff I've learned: I've used SIM cards from the GSM provider in various countries, and it always seems to end up costing more compared to the latest low-cost providers due to the cost of the SIM and setup, the per-minute charge, and the inevitable number of minutes you leave behind that end up expiring. Plus, all the time spent hunting down a SIM shot that can sell you a chip (usually from a different shop where you can purchase top-up cards), which can leave you without phone service until that happens. If anyone knows any other providers with sub USD$0.50/min pricing or any problems/good things about the providers I listed or anything you can add that's great.

Response to above: not trying to be disrespecting to the hard work people have put into their posts over the years, but nobody has the time to spend a few days reading through every post and try to separate out the circa 2006-2007 aged posts, and try to figure out what companies are currently in business, and what the current state of the International GSM market is in. Just creating a thread to gather new, timely information so people don't have to go digging.

I don't know how Flipper can make the statement "but their costs are well over USD$1.00/min in many cases.".


With the drop in EU rates, and the new Dual number SIM's , many SIM providers have rates substantially under $1.00 a minute for the most popular and traveled countries. Even Verizon and ATT have lots of locations with minutes under $1.00.

That's from my admittedly cursory look at rates from the list of International GSM Cards on this site. Many posts that talk about these great SIM cards, and then when you look at the rates they are like USD$1.50 or more per minute, some way more. I'd rather use my AT&T card from my personal cellphone, and avoid the hassles of callback dialing, Skype forwarding, lost prepaid credit due to industry instability, and lack of coverage in certain areas where there are no agreements.

I've only found a couple cards that seem to have reasonable rates. The rest seem to charge outlandish costs. Granted, some cards used in Europe give free incoming calls, and that's great. But not everyone travels there.'

Just a request: rather than quoting me or saying "flipper" shouldn't say this or that...could we please just talk about the GSM Services provided out there and discuss them rather than personalizing the discussion? Thanks :)

Ekit: for example, is USD$1.29 call-in/USD$1.49 call-out, significant higher than the two cards I mentioned when calling from the Caribbean (Dominican Republic specifically). Plus a USD$0.35 connect fee for each call, either way plus a whopping USD$59 just to purchase the card (and hope to God they don't go out of business or require you to purchase another card). This card does, however, look good if you are traveling to Europe with the free incoming call (though you have to include the connect fee, and the USD$0.19/min charge for calls to your US+1 number, which is a great feature btw). But as a general use card world-wide, it's not as good overall.

Flipper:

For people who rarely travel, or make few calls, ATT and Verizon International cell phone rates are fine. For me, My Passport SIM from Ekit works well and it saves me lots of money. Check a few of ATT's cell phone rates and then compare them to most SIM cards.

I am going to Italy, Israel, Egypt, Greece and Turkey in September. My Ekit Passport Sim charges 49 cents a minute plus a 35 cent connection fee to call back to the U.S. from each of these countries. So if I make a 10 minute call back to the U.S from each place I visit, it will cost me a total of $26.25. Those same 10 minute calls using ATT from a cell phone will cost about $85.50.

Yes; definitely I wouldn't want to use AT&T's card for long trips...but the high outlay for some cards outweighs the savings if you are only making a couple, short calls. A collection of calls that total 25 minutes (at USD$2/min) through AT&T on my trip would still cost less than an eKit SIM itself. Global Roaming or MaxRoam seem to provide even lower costs to the destinations I goto such as the Americas, with little outlay in the beginning. Even buying a SIM in-country might require an outlay of USD$15 just to get the card, then you can realize some savings. Guess it just depends on where you are going, and if you plan to talk a lot. I'm looking for a SIM card that I can use to travel around the Americas, then toss it over to people in my family that travel to other areas of the world: a SIM card that has a balance of good rates world-wide.

Heck even Searoam is a no-brainer compared to AT&T, but definitely not as good as ekit, global roaming, or maxroam.

-There's no connect fee on incoming calls within zone 1.
-You don't have to use the +1 DID.
-The Passport SIM is available for $20+$3 shipping direct from EKit on ebay:
International World SIM card with free Incoming calls! - eBay (item 130287597538 end time Sep-11-09 03:24:46 PDT)

While not every card is the best for any specific situation, this card isn't bad "overall".

On the Passport SIM, Ekit has 67 countries with free incoming.
http://ekit.com/ekit/MobileInfo/Service/ekpassport_dual

Zone distribution
Country, number of countries
1a 67
1b 7
2 28
3 25
4 12
5 5

In what way might Global Roaming be more unstable than Maxroam, or Searoam not as good as either of them, when the underlying SIM card and other details are exactly the same?

If you want up to date and accurate information, you'd do well to quit sweeping and inaccurate generalisations, discounting other people's suggestions, and be more objective. And read a bit more of what is already here. At the moment it is a little difficult to understand whether you are more keen on asking other people or telling them.

A decision what card to use will depend on what calls are likely to be made and received, for instance whether these are mostly to and from the user's home country, within the visited country, or out to other countries. As an example, this summer I have been in countries where the incoming cost on either local or roaming SIM is free, and the per minute cost of calling home or within the country could be 9 to 13 eurocents on a local SIM, 7 to 20p with Vodafone UK, 25p with O2 UK, 30 to 50 cents with any European or roaming SIM, and 58 cents to over a euro with Maxroam, and add on that it is more expensive to call the Belgian Maxroam number. Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention the cost of using data, which was 6 and 10 euros per month compared to 1.25 to 3 pounds per megabyte or one card's nearly 2 euros per 100kB, which is almost 20 times markup on the EU mandated wholesale rate.

I'm not discounting anyone's suggestions. In fact, that's what several people here have done about what I've said or found. I feel the warmth and welcoming of this forum to be lacking.

On the contrary, I'm putting out what I've learned, and hopefully either people will learn from it or correct me so that we can put more updated info about the best cards on this site. It looks like we've identified three cards, and one voip service. Anyone have more information or other ways with the best combination of services? Or do we want to continue personalizing the whole thing?

I have to say I would agree. It would be nice to for instance make a wiki and put advice for various scenarios that come up, like places where people travel to, where they call/who calls them, etc. and then receive the best current advice based on information that we keep up to date. I personally am still wondering about a good method of receiving calls in Europe from people who are in the US. Ekit's rates sound nice but how much do callback services cost and how reliable are those? Basically, I want to forward calls from my standard US post-paid line to another US number which then forwards calls to whatever SIM I am using. The question is, assuming I already have the desired SIMs, how much do these forwarding services usually cost for someone in my situation? Also things like am I charged extra for unanswered calls, voicemail reception, etc.?

Have you looked at Telna Mobile? It gives you a US number and the rates are not too bad. I used it on a recent trip and was quite satisfied.

As for the 3rd party number that will forward to your international sim, the cost and reliability vary. You just have to look at their website and test them out. I have used voicestick and les.net in the past. And in both cases I have sometimes been charged for incomplete calls, etc.

lack of warmth?
 

<i>I feel the warmth and welcoming of this forum to be lacking.</i>

Yes I have found the same. It's just that some folks are more helpful than others I guess! On balance though it's worth running the course for the info that is shared.

my 2¢
 

I generally have found the opposite to be true. Proud to say - this is one of the FEW places that I visit on the Net that people are generally warm and willing to help. And I'm probably one of the biggest cry-babies around!

My thoughts on your OP - when you use subjective terms like "Appears to be" or "You run the risk of" or "Seems to be" or "seem to understand" you would probably garner some sort of ridicule or at the very least, skepticism. It's the nature of every subjective "list" ever created - people just don't agree.

Basically, I think you set yourself up for this type of response. Good luck with your compilation.

The only problem with Telna is the high annual fee if you don't travel often. This is on top of it not being pre-paid.