Dual SIM card by SimCardGlobal.com - why do I need dual SIM
 

Friends,

I recently found an International dual SIM card on SimCardGlobal.com

Their rates are very cheap, serving like 200 countries and I understand they offer both US and UK numbers on the same SIM card which sound cool. What I didn't understand is what is the advantage of having an additional US number on the same SIM? If I live in Australia and travel to US, it will cost my callers the same to call UK or US number, so why do I need this extra number?

Can someone explain and shed some light on it? Thanks.

RoadRunnerUS

Calling a British mobile costs MUCH more than calling a US number. BTW these multi IMSI simcards all have a double prefix in order to have good rates in the US too.

Also, you will pay for incoming calls on the US number but in many countries, not on the UK number.

You can decide for yourself if it's better for callers to pay more and you less, or vice versa.

Also, as mentioned above, if you use the US side of your card (which still receives incoming calls from the UK number), the rates are a tiny fraction of what you'll pay using the UK side. The same applies in Canada although the rates are slightly higher.

I haven't analyzed all the rates on the web site referred to above but I will say this....if you go to ebay, you will find two very similar products, one offered for $9 with $3 shipping (although this is to the USA, I don't know how much it is to ship to other places) and $20 (also with $3 shipping)...you can read up about the subtle differences....

Thank you guys for the quick answer.

Matha531, I am not sure I understand your answer. It is not only buying the card, but also to have a worldwide network to use it. Can you be more specific on the cards you mentioned. Are they coming also with call plans?

General question by a newbie... What are all these networks mentioned at the bottom of the message of Effendi and PhotoJim? It look to me like an advertising, which I am sure it is not!

that's just a signature; it shows the prepaid simcards from different countries and operators that I bought in the bast

These are e-kit cards which has been specializing in the international card market for a while.....basically you buy a card from some company which has agreements with a world wide collection of companies....For years, e-kit had a card with a UK(+44) number which worked in something like 120 countries in the world.....in each case it was based on a roaming agreement so if you used the card in Germany, you wouldn't be on e-kit, you would be on some Germany mobile company say Vodafone DE with which the card has an agreement.

The e-kit cards work exactly the same way as many of the other international cards based on the Isle of Man have worked, there are subtle differences in coverage but as a general rule, they work in all of Western Europe, Central Europe and a good part of Eastern Europe, as well as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan (although you need a phone with Japanese frequqncies and technologies).....

The gist of these cards is as noted: If you are travelling say in Western Europe, people can call you on either the UK(+44) number in which case they pay for whatever their long distance carrier charges for a call to a UK mobile number or on the USA (+1) number in which case they pay for whatever their ld carrier charges for a call to a US number. Note that calls to US (and Canadian) numbers do not distinguish between landlines and mobiles...you don't pay any surcharge to call a US number even if it is amobile....on your end, if you are in the countries these companies list as Zone 1 (the list is on ebay with the card) you pay nothing to receive the call if made on the +44 number and 19¢ (US) per minute if received on the US number...calls within zone 1 cost 49¢/minute (US) with a 35¢ set up fee to landlines and all US and Canadian numbers, and 84¢/minute to mobile throughout most of the zone 1 (their terminology) world. Outside zone 1, rates increase tremendously.

The $9 USA Simple card (with $3 shipping at least to the USA) works very well for a traveller to most of the touristy places in Europe. (After all, for $12 how can you really go wrong?). As noted, there are subtle differences in the rate structure between these cards and the international cards offered by several companies on the Isle of Man but the later cards, as well as the one you referred to, are somewhat more expensive (the one country that comes to mind as one of those providers correctly pointed out is Bulgaria).....but again take a look at the offering on ebay and if you have any questions, post them here and somebody I am sure will try to help you.

Read the small print, I always hate this but many things are hidden in these terms these days.

All incoming calls to the USA number are subject to an additional $0.30 per minute surcharge

The is also a $21 fee to be paid each year to keep the sim active.

Also when looking at the mainpage it says you wil get both a uk and us number but nowhere does it say that receiving calls on the US will cost you extra. Only when looking at the rates there is a * mark saying you will pay extra.

I really don't like this kind of marketing as many people don't check the rates or forget to see the * saying it will cost more.

Just buy the ekit sim on ebay, no yealry fee, good support, good backend where you can clearly see what the costs are.

OK guys, thanks to your help I was able to get the right ad for e-kit on e-bay. I think their rates are outrageous, and I wonder how come bbob was not paying attention to it. The initial kit is cheap indeed, only $9, but they are going to eat you alive on air time and connection fees.

Let’s see a 10 minutes call on e-kit from UK to a mobile number in France, or any other country in Europe. After all, we are buying the phone to travel overseas, aren’t we? So 10 minutes at $0.84, will cost me $8.40. Now let’s read the fine lines… On each call send or received they are charging me additional $0.35 connection fee, and hey, lets not forget the $0.19 surcharge per minute on a call on your US number. So this little call ended up to be $8.75 if you used the +44 number and $10.65 if you used your US number (why would I do that?). Same call on SimCardGlobal.com Cheap International dual SIM cards and global roaming, will cost you only $5.20 or 40% less! The difference in the initial pricing is going to evaporate in a week.

A10 minutes incoming call received in Russia will cost $18.75 on e-kit and ZERO on SimCardGlobal. Who is buying this crap from e-kit?

e-kit are charging 10 cents on each SMS received, which no other company in the business is doing. And as I mentioned, they are charging 19 cents per minute on any call received on the US number. And how about e-kit airtime credit expires after 30 days while most the others never expires their credit!

I checked other sites like MobilityPass local and International roaming Internet Access provider, WiFi hotspot, 3G, Toll Free, Dial-up, Broadband, wireless and mobile internet. or OneSimCard - Prepaid International SIM Card and World Cell Phones, and they are all beating e-kit to death. Mobilitypass, according to another post I saw here, require you to always have at least $25 airtime credit on your account, and in a month you made calls under $5, they charge you $5 anyhow… pretty dirty tricks. I didn’t saw this with SimCardGlobal, and I think their rates are very competitive.

Bottom line – buy e-kit and you are doing the mistake of your life. You get it cheap to begin with, but you ended up paying more, much more, much, much more.

Roadrunner...

It depends on a lot of factors and depends on your use. To characterize e-kit as a mistake might not be true in all cases but nobody said for all people it is the best.

For me, my travelling is in Western, Central and parts of Eastern Europe. I go to Scandanavia, it's perfect for me...I don't call many European mobiles if any...I might make a call or two to a local restaurant. If I'm going to be in a burgh for a while, I might go for a local sim.

My chief use of the card is to receive calls as economically as possible. I can always ask somebody who I call to call me back. I use my regular t mobile USA phone for text messaging...on my plan it's free to receive text messages I believe all over the world...it costs me only 35¢ to send a text message...also I have local British sims and their rates outside of Britain are not any better than e-kit....there are a few other Isle of Man international cards and at least on this forum we have discovered they all have fair usage policies (that means if you only use the cards to receive calls and make too few outgoing calls, they cut you off), annual fees and other goodies in the fine print.

Now, your needs may be different than mine. For exame, I still have an Air Baltic card which uses Estonian originating numbers...its rate in Russia is very reasonable but it has high rates to and from Estonia whereas e-kit treats Estonia as zone 1...free incoming via the +44 and 19¢ incoming via +1...you figure out why....

Unfortunately the international sim card business has been very unstable recently. Until the last year, we had O9 in Iceland, United Mobile in both Liechtenstein and the isle of Jersey and they had better rates than e-kit.

But agin for everybody, it's the way they use the phone that is the determining factor and believe me I don't espouse getting 5 or 6 different sim cards for international travel but as long as I am reachable, if I call home I can always ask the person I call to call me right back and they have no problems calling me on the +1 number.

Well, I have to say the people I know are not quite like this. I don’t fill comfortable calling someone, especially on a business trip, and tell him “hey, I want to save some money, please call me back”… I also want the people that usually call me, to know my number, and to know it is always the same, wherever I am. Therefore, carrying 5-6 different SIM cards is not an option. I truly believe the “Isle of Man” concept, as you call it, is the better one.

What I don’t like in e-kit concept, is the fact, in my humble opinion, they are misleading people. A US tourist is going for 3 weeks to Europe and is looking for a good solution to carry one phone, be in touch with his family, and making some local calls. With e-kit, he see $9 card, and he is taking it, as one of the post above says “you can’t be wrong”. But after a week, all these extra surcharges added up, and he is already paying more than he planned. I am not talking about exotic places around the world. Russia, Indonesia (Bali), Argentine, China, Philippines, Ukraine, Peru, Thailand, they are all at $1.84. And the cream, India at $4.04… You know what? At least 5 Billion people are living in these “e-kit expensive” countries.

So to claim e-kit is the ultimate solution, while there are 100 companies over there with overall much cheaper solution is pure misleading, IMHO.

I did not look at the rates, just because it would cost to much time to compare them.

For me hidding rates in terms and yearly fees says enough but if you say there rates are to high well that speaks for itself not to consider this company. Ekit is a good choice. For the moment the have no fair use crap, no yearly fees and rates seem to be reasonable and their cards are cheap to get.

ekit is a good deal.

bbob, you are writing "I did not look at the rates". You have to realize that many readers and potential buyers are reading the posts here and what you are doing is IMHO irresponsible. How can you compare between companies without looking at the rates? Just by saying e-kit product cost $9? that is the only factor?

You are “promoting” e-kit, while it is clearly a bad choice, at least for most of us. I gave in posts above several examples where e-kit rates are almost double than SimCardGlobal.com, e-kit has lousy incoming calls and SMS policy and I also compared e-kit to other leading companies in the market. I did the research after your initial post and concluded that by the end of the day, e-kit are much more expensive than the others, and let’s face the reality.

I also don't understand why you do not consider hidden fees by e-kit, such as $0.19 per minute on receiving calls on USA number, $0.35 connection fee (I wonder what is the rational to pay double on a 1 minute call...), $0.10 on incoming SMS and whatever additional hidding fees they have in their bag of tricks, also as "hidding rates in terms", as you wrote above.

I hope the smart readers of this chain will decide for themselves based on the facts and overall total cost and not by the hype.

Roadrunner.....

None of the fees you mentioned about e-kit are hidden...they are right there in the open. I believe the vast majority of North Americans will find that the majority of countries most (I agree not all) visit are listed in e=kit's zone 1 and hence those rates are quite competitive with most of the other international cards....now if I were going to Russia (BTW I need a visa to get there, I just can't go down to the airport and catch a plane to Moscow the same way I can to get to London or Tokyo) I would agree with you, e-kit is not a good choice. I would love you (or anybody else) to tell me of the best deal of a card that:

1. Has free reception of calls everywhere in the world (or at least less than say 20¢ US)

2. Dirt cheap calls both locally and internationally without surcharges to mobiles..

3. Free sms everywhere

4. Low initial cost (after all, we've now seen in the last year how fragile so many of these companies are. If you were to have told me a year ago that both O9 and United Mobile would be reposing in peace today, I wouldn't have believed you). So you don't want to have to make a big initial investment just in case nor have minimum recharging prices. You can recharge e-kit for as little as $10 via the internetl

5. A US direct dial number (as rates to call US lines are relatively cheap throughout the world).

6. No fair usage policy (I don't use it for business like most tourists don't and have problem with asking somebody to call me back)

7. No annual fee....

When you come up with such a card, let us all know. But as for me, and I would say for most tourists who need an international card (if you're visiting one or two countries, in some cases you might be better off with a local sim) e-kit is not the worst choice in the world.....but I indeed respect your opinion.

I just don't see why you have this hostility towards e-kit. They, at least to me who has read their stuff, quite up front with what they charge.

Well, we both know such a card does not exist... And if it is exist - don't buy it, because the company will go out of business soon! So we need to pick up what is important to us. Some will prefer low initial cost like e-kit, some will prefer low rates and many countries with free incoming call like SimCardGlobal.com, which are giving 65 countries with free incoming calls. I have nothing against e-kit, I just don't like when they charge you a connection fee on each call. Most of the companies already stopped it.

RoadRunnerUS, As mentioned already I think, most of us here have more than one international sim card. Because there is no one solution. It's a matter of just determining your needs and what is more important to you and use the sim card that suits you. I will agree that for imcoming calls in most of Europe and the other countries I am likely to visit, Ekit is not bad. I already have something similar in TelnaMobile that works for me.

Roadrunner, for the us number and the connections fee, you can easlily just setup your own us number and forward this to the +44 number. This is the cheapest solution. I am using this now with one of the betamax brands and they only charge 5-6 eurocents per minute to forward this.

This is cheaper that using the +1 number that comes with any of these cards.

Who are you to tell us that we are ending up paying much much more without knowing the usage of an individual users and they countries they are using the card in.

Free incoming calls in over 65 countries it is stated on the main page.

When checking rates for different EU countries, NL, DE, BE, FR it says +44 atlas incoming call cost around $ 0.10 yes there is a list that gives the countries with free receiption but these are not main EU countries there are some others ones like russia that is free. So depending on your travel plans some countries are offered free that ekit does not offer for free.
This means if you visit Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherland, Belgium you pay for incoming call and this can be much more expensive that using ekit. That said for other countries ekit might be more expensive.

So roadrunner your statement that using ekit means paying much more is false it depends on individual use.

This does bring me back to the following problem on the website:

In the FAQ it states:

Above statements can although not be found anywhere in the terms on the website and the on the frontpage it says:

So which one is the right one the faq or the mainpage ?
Never expires and expires untill the card is active and having to pay to keep it active the complete opposite.

I have to tell you guys, you are not representing the voice of the general public. The general public does not want to go with 5-6 different SIM cards. The general public does not want to set a US number that will relay your calls. Hey, now I need to search the Internet how to do that? And I probably have to pay for the service even if I am not using it.

To tell you the truth, the general public have hard time to replace a SIM card in the phone… So to me, all these suggestion sound like “The academy said”, bla, bla, bla. If you guys enjoying it – fine. If you feel comfortable calling someone and ask him to call you back, that is fine too. The rest of us will use SimCardGlobal.com, RoamSimple.com and the rest of the good guys.

It might cost us a little more, I am not even sure about that, but it is easy to use. You buy it once in a life time, and the number is yours forever. You don’t need to think, hey I am traveling to Estonia today, which card should I use. Is incoming calls in Russia free, so maybe I need to purchase a local SIM? Get real, talking on vacation is part of the vacation, not a rocket science.

As for SimCardGlobal discrepancies you mentioned, I do not see it on the web site now. Maybe it was fixed. It says "Your unused airtime credit never expires as long as your card is active"

As for your last point. I clearly wrote read the FAQ and in there it's says the credit is valid as long as the card is active. The card remains active if you pay a yearly fee. It's there it's unclear. So look more close like I did.

It's interesting to read that you come up with different answer everytime. You do have a point that most user will not check rates whenever they buy a card, but many will and it might be true that the average user is not on this board.

That said you are now really saying it does not matter which sim you buy so why make those statements people are paying to much when using ekit compared to simcardglobal.

Using your latest argument the general public doesn't care and if they buy either of these card they are still paying less than their at&t or other card.

As I said it's interesting to see that if you have no answer when someone makes a point you really end up saying the general public just want 1 or 2 cards and in the end they will not look at rates. Were not you who was telling me to look at the rates when giving an advice. It now seems that the different rates are not really interesting for the general public.

So what will be your next point ?

A lot of strange squabbling going on here! Roadrunner, if I did not know you it would sound like with the amount you want to plug SimCardGlobal and diss the rest, that you work for them! Oh hold on, I do not know you!

I think most people do not really do this! The truth is that most savvy users (especially the ones who use this site) and especially those who wish to make longer calls will make use of the free/cheap incoming facility on a roaming SIM and then setup a callback using a 3rd party provider! This works out much cheaper than all the rates that are being squabbled about! Of course this is something that the providers of the SIM do not like, but hey that's life!
Yes, or we use a combination of the good guys, the bad guys and the ugly guys! Whatever floats your boat!

Roadrunner, I have just had time to read the whole thread properly! At least have the decency to compare like for like and compare the facts properly! I'll admit I don't even use ekit (anymore), but this thread is just going a bit too far!

1. You keep staing that ekit charge 10c for incoming SMS. At least make it clear that this is only for SMS received on the US number. Any SMS received on the UK number is still free of cost!

2. You ridicule ekit for charging a 19c/min surcharge on the US number, but you fail to mention in the same breath that your own product incurrs a much higher 30c/min surcharge!

3. You mention the rate for India on ekit (I presume incoming) as the "cream" at 4.04. The incoming rate is actually 3.29 on ekit and 3.26 on yours. Forgive me for saying but in the grand scheme of things, and given the fact that practically all of the roaming products for India are expensive, that 3c difference is insignificant!

I haven't got time to investigate more of your tall claims, or to highlight many of the instances where your own product works out much more expensive than ekit but please stop insulting the intelligence of the users of this site who are able to make up their minds with real facts based on rate sheets!

Hmm… If someone is working for a company here, I guess it is the one that promote e-kit around here… I mentioned in my posts at least 5 different companies that are SimCardglobal.com alike!

As for bbob claim about annual fee, I do not understand what is unclear. SimCardGlobal.com has a renewal fee of $21, which is less than 6 cents a day. e-kit are charging $0.35 PER CALL, and if you make 10 calls a day you ended up with $3.50. If you make 60 calls a year, your fee already surpass SimCardGlobal.com ANNUAL fee. A little different I should say from the bright picture you are trying to draw…

RoamSimple.com has a $29 renewal fee which is cheaper than e-kit as well. brightroam.com have extension fee of $20, but if you forgot to purchase it within 90 days, your airtime will expire... They all have annual fee, it is all a matter of how you market it. e-kit are marketing it like it does not exist, but they are the most expensive of them all!

I don’t come with a different answer every time. My answer is always the same. e-kit is expensive; avoid it at any cost. I already proved it in my calculations above. Any one of the companies I mentioned is cheaper by the end of the day than e-kit, unless you are using all kind of tricks like multiple SIM cards, or “friends pay my bill”.

Petkow, you are writing “…will make use of the free/cheap incoming facility on a roaming SIM and then setup a callback using a 3rd party provider!” are you sure about it? I don’t know how to do this, together with 98% of the population. Guys, the world is not “prepaid academy”. We want to talk for a reasonable price. That’s it. Not to do three weeks research and travel with a manual “how to beat the system”. And this is exactly what all the companies I mentioned do. Give you a good service at a fair price.

What about rates to India?
I suppose you should have to say something about that or not?

Who, me? :confused:

Look, what is obvious here is different strokes for different folks. As we said about 7 posts earlier, there is obviously not one perfect card for everybody. The objection is charctrizing e-kit the way it was and I positively don't work for e-kit.

Most people I know take one or two trips on an international basis a year. They may be away say 4 weeks. In that time, they may make 15 to 20 outgoing calls. Using the 35¢ set up fee, that comes to $7 (remember I said most).....

Setting up an international callback system is easy.....but yes most people don't read this bulletin board and know some of the ins and outs we pick up. I grant you that. But then again many people are happy to pay $1.29 to AT&T and/or T Mobile US to roam and pay for both incoming and outgoing calls and think it is a bargain!

This whole area, of course, is in a state of flux. We make the same points over and over again. Quite frankly, for a trip to Europe, today I might opt for a true UK sim say from O2 and consider their European plan for 10 quid a month, over and done. But that doesn't help me much if I have to call the USA (and those rates are sky rocketing as many of the telcoms have to make up for their loss of revenue due to eurotariffs)...but I have a certain set of needs that may be different than others but I think my needs are more in line with many people. Here are my needs, Mr. Roadruunner...

1. Trips about three or four times a year to Europe, almost all within the eu.

2. Prime consideration is receiving calls when I'm away for as cheap as possible. This includes having the ability to, as cheap as possible, forward calls off my home number landline in NY to whatever sim of the day, so to speak, I am using. Currently, my call forwarding costs me straight from my landline 30¢/minute to UK mobile numbers, not outrageous but that's the price. Of course, until about two years ago, my call forwarding to a Liechtenstein mobile cost me 10¢/minute before termination fees shot through the roof.

3. I do not use the sim for business...it's just plain ordinary to be reachable 24/7 when I'm away for people to call me on my regular number.

4. I have no intention of travelling to India or Indonesia or some of the other places mentioned here.

So,

For me, e-kit is a fine compromise. Am I totally happy as compared to what I once had. No, of course not. Would I prefer to carry my notebook everywhere and use one of th einternet based carriers. Of course, but then there's the charge for wifi or whatever.

Sure I want as cheap a plan as possible and I understand at a certain point, there will be little return to the international card providers. They have already seen a lot of their customer base disappear due to the eurotariffs but at the same time I am tired of having T Mobile (DT) take money from its left pocket and put it in its right pocket and on the way charge a steep fee for "roaming".

But you know, I know, we all know that in the 21st century world of technology, things are constantly changing and becoming more user friendly and cheaper. The same computer system I can go out and buy for $400 today would have cost $2,000 just a year or two ago and comes with so much more. Having wireless routers in my apartment with wireless printers and whatever is an every day thing today, would have been unheard of just a couple of years ago. Just having a mobile phone that works relatively (and that is the key word) inexpensively when I travel and the ability to forward calls to it 24/7 wherever in the world (well most places in the world) is what is most important to me saving a few pennies along the way.

I will stick with what I said...if I were to give advice to a novice, going across the pond for the first time from North America and who asks me what's the most convenient way of having a mobile phone for a trip to Europe (or Australia or New Zealand) I would still suggest the ekit simple card as available on ebay for $9 plus $3 shipping. I still stand by my original point that it's fairly reasonable and convenient for most. And I'm sorry to say buying e-kit is the biggest mistake you can make is just downright wrong.

Funny thing is I had never heard of Simcardglobal, brightroam and roamsimple until Roadrunner turned up here. I am not sure, (and cannot be bothered to check) but are they all from the same stable?

With regards to what I mentioned about setting up a 3rd party callback... Callback is actually the technology that most of these SIM's are based on in the first place! As it is, it's a bit of an adjustment to make as when you dial a number your phone start ringing and waiting for a pickup! I think most people who get used to this, and read up a bit on sites like this...will eventually figure out how to make low cost 3rd party callbacks!

We are not talking about 98% of the population in any case. 98% of the population do not regurlarly have to make 60 calls per year on a roaming SIM from UK to France!

You go to SimCardGlobal.com Cheap International dual SIM cards and free global roaming
On there main page at the bottom you will find some text saying Main Features

Your unused airtime credit never expires as long as your card is active that is what it says now. Before it said your unused airtime never expires.

all of a sudden they have now like it should be added "as long as your card is active" Seems like others have complained or they have read this thread. Or like petkow says no one ever heared of simcardglobal before you came here and now all of a sudden because I wrote about the problem between faq en main pages this has been resolved, mm very interesting.

As for your comparing prices. There is no use in doing this as everyone has to do this based on their personal use.

Like I said simcardglobal does charge incoming cost in many EU countries. So if you are receiving many inbound calls using simcardglobal in these countries, france, italy, germany, netherlands you are paying $0,10 to $ 0,21 per minute. When using ekit or some other sims you pay nothing.

So I could also slap you saying when I use the card for receiving many incoming calls in these countries simcard global is a rip off.

The point is very simple, there is no cheaper or more expensive call card, this al depens on where you are traveling, are you using more inbound than outbound, do you use it once per year or all year round. In some cases whatever sim x might be cheaper in other case sim y and yet in others sim z.

So please get the point here and stop you pure marketing for simcardglobal.

Another post by
 

Could this be the same person in the last post here?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting a mobile phone in England

Excerpt:

<i>The minus in buying the SIM card while in GB is you don't know the number that will be assigned to you, so your friends will not be able to call you. I think a better idea is to buy a global SIM card, which will serve you in UK and other countries. Some of them has no expiration at all, so it is yours for life. I know SimCardGlobal.com Cheap International dual SIM cards and free global roaming has a good service with cheap price, and they have a branch in Australia. You might want to consider it.

RoadRunnerUS</i>

Well found, and what a load of absolute bollocks that advice is

As we know, the UK has at least half a dozen brands with cheap calls to Australia and USA and plenty of other countries, starting at 3 and 4 pence a minute., so someone moving here for some time should look for those rather than a global SIM

I'd still been wondering why the OP had asked the question from the perspective of someone travelling from Australia, yet has declared as coming from America. Now I wonder if the criticism of a prominent Australian provider isn't much of a coincidence

Looks like someone is pretty hell-bent on plugging their product at all costs! I just had to read the OP again after your post Andy, though am confused by the bit of "the criticism of a prominent Australian provider"?

Anyhow, unfortunately plugging your own product on this forum tends to back-fire. For some strange reason I don't think anybody here will buy this product now!

Interesting points too made by BBob! You're absolutely right that people make their choice of SIM on so many different factors. Just a small point that I wanted to add on that! One other very important factor in choosing a SIM is reputation, however it's hard to know what to measure that against these days, after even some of the most reputable companies folded (e.g. United Mobile), resulting in people losing credit and to a certain extent their investment on the upfront cost! On that note, all the more reason to buy a SIM card with a low upfront cost (e.g. Ekit), and keep your balance on that as low as possible. It also goes without saying that you should always buy a SIM from a provider that someone has made some decent experiences with, and not one that is suspiciously marketed by a new member!

ekit is Australian

Thanks. I didn't know that!


Just a small point... I noticed a mistake in something I had written in post 21. I cannot edit it, but I think you can! I had written:
I did of course mean to say "I'll admit I don't even use ekit (anymore)..". Small difference!

I have said it before. There is more to buying a world SIM than merely looking for the absolute lowest rates.

For me, I want a SIM with a fair and reasonable rate structure. One with an easy and fairly priced method of keeping the SIM active. One with an online web site that shows all calls and charges. A company with a 24/7 customer service department that actually answers the phone when you call with a question. A company that won't shut you down if you get too many incoming calls. A company that hopefully has a business model that will enable it to be around year after year. A company that clearly states all their fees and polices, without any "hidden" surprises buried in 10 pages of fine print.

I am sure there are a few companies that meet these simple guidelines. For me, I have chosen to go with an EKIT Passport SIM. They have been my primary source of a world SIM card for nearly 3 years now. I have been happy with their service and rates and will continue to use them.

Hey Andy...

I read a post from somebody on that other board regarding cell phones in England and this person pointed out that ycw now has cheap calls with Orange as well as T Mobile UK...is that true? Is that part of their merger?

Ah ha...I should have gone to the ycw web site...I see both Orange and 3 now are only charging 3p to call the USA.

I don't think it's necessarily to do with the merger, as use on Orange appeared not so long after the merger was announced, and the networks wouldn't have told YCW in advance, and the merger is some time in the future and maybe isn't certain to go through. I hadn't noticed 3 added, which must be quite recent.

Offices and Customer Service
 

ekit has offices in the US and the UK also.

I have talked to both Austrailian and US customer service [Different times of day and night.]

I know this is going OT but the adddition of Orange and 3 is interesting. The 3 prepaid SIM is getting even more interesting all the time, especially with free Skype facility etc.

I noticed that the YCW number used to be 07755.. but I notice the number is now something short starting with 29... I was not aware that shortcode numbers that do not start with a "0" work from UK mobiles (well apart from emergency services). I presume this number range is something new? I also presume that these still work at the same rate from prepaid (PAYG) SIMs as well?

Hi Guys, interesting thread to say the least. I work in ekit's London office (regulars will have spoken with JD in the past). Having read through the whole thread, I can at least agree with RoadRunner on a couple of things; ekit are expensive in Russia and India.

One task I spend a lot of time on is analysing the differences between ekit and its competitors. Nearly all contributors (and I'd hope readers) to this thread have displayed an understanding that savings between generic Global SIM #1 vs. generic Global SIM # 2 all comes down to individual calling profiles, and there are millions of possible scenarios.

I can easily form compelling arguments when necessary by cherry picking selected calling profiles and holding them up as "we're best", but any Global SIM company can do that. For a multitude of reasons no two companies have the same rate structures.

To finish, I also handle ekit's SIM listings on eBay in both the UK and the USA. I have been reading here sporadically and observing the reaction over the least year or so, mostly positive, which is nice to see. It's still a work in progress. (Before I start a flood, if you have any specific eBay order questions, you will definitely get an answer via our CS minions a lot quicker).

Thanks for the even-toned discussions I've read, its certainly pleasing to see that most contributors are considered in their posts.

Paul.

Paul....

I will give you what I consider a negative that did and still does irk me about ekit. Because of the rate structure of landlines in he USA, I still pay long distance charges on calls I make outside my immediate calling area (although not necessarily steep, they do exist).....so when I ordered e kit I was given a USA number with an area code in Springfield Mass so that when I call forward I would be paying something like an extra 12 to 13 cents/minute to forward the call from my home landline to the ekit number.

Yet I read on another thread that somebody got when I need namely a New York City area code (212, 718, 917, 347, 646) for the USA portion of the ekit card. Now I have a work around namely I forward calls coming into my home landline to my cell phone (a local call)....and then use the cell phone to forward to ekit...I don't know if this doulbe forwarding has any effect on the quality of the call (it doesn't seem to) and it's really not a big problem as I have oodles of minutes on my cell plan and it doesn't charge for ld in the USA.

But it would be more convenient for me if I could get a NYC area code on my USA number on ekit and I find the fact that you seem to give out the USA number on a random basis sort of a minus for the card.

Just a suggestion of a way to improve the service.