Cheapest roaming rates for SMS & Data (no voice)
 

Hello to everyone,

prepaidgsm.net list is focused in Roaming voice cost, so I'm trying to collect all information from each operator, but it's really dificult because of diferent site maps or languages.

The requirements of SIM cards I'm looking for are:
- Prepay
- SMS in roaming 0,11€
- cheapest GPRS tarif
- >12 months expiration
- Don't want call-back service
- I will not use Voice calls

At this moment the best ones I found are:
Belgium Base 2,5/Mb 0,11/SMS
Luxemburg Luxgsm 3,4/Mb 0,11/SMS

Could anyone propose some Operators or Countries to look for?

solomo pro (a German operator) also has attractive roaming rates within the EU:
data: € 0.19/100KB
SMS: € 0.13/message
incoming calls: € 0.10/min
outgoing calls: € 0.51/min (even cheaper with their callback)

simyo.de has the same rates for data, SMS and outgoing calls, but incoming ones are more expensive.

If your data requirement is anything more than a trivial amount, I think you'll have to forego roaming and start a collection of favourites from each country

but, UK networks roaming in EU, per MB

3 £1.25
O2 £3
Orange £3
T-mobile £1.50
Virgin £5

Vodafone has given up per MB, except for small amounts, and charges in blocks. On phones, up to 1 MB costs £4.99 per day, charged in 1 kB units. Then the next 24 MB per day are free. Then £4.99 for the next 25 MB. For laptop use, it's £9.99 per day for each 50 MB.

There are also some other bundle possibilities, but I'd need to check through them to check if they are on contract or prepaid.

None of the UK SIMs will expire if used at least once every 180 days, though Virgin is a year or so and 3 doesn't expire at all

But really, I'd repeat what I said about use only in home country, then you can find bundles such as 200 MB, 500 MB or more for €5 or €10 a week or a month or even longer, such as yesss in Austria 512 MB for €9.99 and lasts up to a year or can be topped up

Vodafone ireland. 0.99/day 50mb limit! got it working in non-EU countries and its a 12month sim. SMS rates no idea.. They got 10euro/500MB for a month plan. Never tried it abroad!

Quite a decent rate, which Vodafone Ireland offers. But I think those rates are limited to the use from a handset and over a WAP-proxy, which means no other protocols than http are admitted. At least that is what I conclude from the tariff page, which is headed with "Internet on your mobile", and from the fact that "live!" is Vodafone's brand for their WAP service.

Did use it on my E71 for IM , E-mails , facebook and forums.

Thank you for your replies.

DATA usage I'm going to do is:
- HTTP and FTP access
- No more than 2Mb/day

I would need more than 60 SIM cards/month. In Spain we have restrictions of 5 SIMs / person /day and it is required ID for registration. Are this restrictions common in the EU?

How could you need more than 60 SIMs when the EU has 27 member states? Remember that all rates mentioned here generally apply to EU-countries only.
Regarding legal limits on the number of SIM cards owned, we don't have such at least here in Germany.

It sounds like tracking a transport fleet. There are no limits on acquiring UK SIMs: in fact it is not even compulsory to register (except Orange). You can get 2 to 4 free from any network, posted to a UK address, or buy larger numbers on ebay for from about 50p

UK sims are shipped abroad too. But 60 sim cards/month?

Inquisitor, I don't need 1 SIM/country, I need 1 SIM/product sold.

Andy is right, I need them for telemetry. I need to find 1 type of prepay SIM card to use in all EU countries (for standarization reasons).

I see. Have you considered, that a lot of prepaid SIMs have limited data roaming capabilities? E.g. with all those German eplus-based prepaid SIMs (simyo, blau, solomo) there's is mostly only a single network per country, where data is supported, allthough there's (voice-)roaming for further networks. So if your telemetry device registers on one of the non-datacapable roaming networks it won't be able to establish a data session.

I was not even aware of that restriction. Thanks for sharing. Is that a restriction on the amount you can buy/register in a single day, or how many a single person can own??

In my experience the UK SIMs are best for this application. They have extensive roaming agreements and the best part is that they are free (or almost free) to acquire and are very easy to maintain. I have a few Virgin UK SIMs that I do not check into but I am surprised that they have never expired (It's been much more than a year since last use..). I especially like the fact that I can call their customer Service centre for free (from anywhere in the world) and then even recharge multiple SIMs in one go! However, the Virgin UK roaming GPRS tariff is not as attractive anymore as it once was!

It's a shame that the Spanish home market does not have a nice lowcost prepaid to offer for this sort of application. Yoigo is OK at 3Euros per MB but then there is also IVA and minimum spend per month! I cannot believe that Simyo here charge 10 Euros per MB whilst roaming in the EU!!!

Inquisitor, I would take that under consideration.

When I look for german vodafone SIM cards I found this on ebay "Maximal 2 Handy-Karten pro Person " ... do you have this restriction in Germany?

A lot of sellers won't sell you more than 2 or 3 SIMs at once, but if you buy them successively or from different sellers, there won't be a problem. Actually that's not a legal requirement but just a measure of the sellers, who will get less or no commission if a certain number of SIMs per person is exceeded.
Further Vodafone Germany have special prepaid data SIMs, which do not support voice communication (only SMS and data) - these so-called "WebSessions" SIMs are not being registered at all. Unfortunatley they are not sold soley, but only with USB modems. You might find some of those on eBay anyway.

Apart from the retail consumer tariffs we're mostly interested in, there are SIMs especially for data use (and I don't mean mobile broadband), with possibly useful features like fixed IP address or VPN

A couple of years ago, I'd see O2 and Vodafone versions on one website I used to visit, with £1 per MB rates compared to ordinary SIMs at £3. I don't know if they had roaming, and they don't seem to be on that site any more.

But I'd suggest some searches like data sim ip address and the equivalent in Spanish would be a starting point for more research. There seem to be mvno-like operations only for data, so-called m2m, and brand names I'd hardly heard of until the other day

I use Fishtext to send text messages which only costs like 2 euro cents a minute to send. Incoming text messages are free on many plans. It uses data, but the amount is tiny.