International sim with USA number
 

Does this exist?

As far as I know, the person having a USA mobile phone, has to pay for receiving a call, right?

Calling a USA mobile phone number is almost free, see Voipcheap:
United States (Landline) FREE* FREE*
United States (Mobile) 0.010 0.012

I wouldn't mind having to pay for receiving a call (as long as the rate/min isn't too high). This way, anyone can call me for free, and I pay for receiving the call.

Just curious...

There are a couple of such options, but another idea:

Get a VoIP number of some sort...
...and forward it to your mobile.

The advantage of that is that you can get the best mobile provider for your situation (and change as desired) but you can always forward your US number to that. No one but you need know your actual mobile number.

Thanks for the 'forwarding a DID' idea, haven't tought about that (I'll give that a night of sleep to think about it), but...

I'm interested in the options you know about :-)

For the caller, there is no diff. between calling a U.S. or Canadian landline or a U.S. or Canadian cell. IOW, if you can call a U.S. landline free, you can call a U.S. cell phone free. There is absolutely no difference.
Overall cell rates in the U.S. (and Canada) are MUCH cheaper than in most other parts of the world. Eg. I have 3000 min./mo. for $50 - less than 2 cents/min. Prepaid is a lot more expensive 10 cents/min or more depending on how much you buy.

Yackie comes to mind.

There is a new Israeli-based one (the name escapes me) that also has inbound US numbers.

Reading the comments on this forum about Yackie doens't make me jump :-)
And their rates aren't really low.

I'm surprised why USA companies aren't offering anything. Almost every company is EU based.

Any other suggestions?

The US predominantly uses CDMA-based technologies (IS-95, 1xRTT, EvDO) that are incompatible with GSM. Only two major providers (T-Mobile and Cingular) use GSM at all. A few regional providers do as well.

Also, my impression is that Americans are less interested in international roaming products because relative to people from other parts of the world, they leave the country relatively little. Most Americans to whom I have spoken have never been to Canada, let alone Europe or Asia. Conversely, someone from Switzerland might go to France for lunch, because it might only be 40 km away, and Germany is only 70 km.

I think it would be great to get a more North American-based international SIM product, but to be frank, those of us here don't really need it - we already have affordable rates here. It's you guys who need it. And do you come much? :)

Yes, it's also about geography :). In Europe we have about 50 countries or country-like territories with their own GSM networks, thousands of kilometres of (often fancy-shaped) borders and free travel zone in most of them. It doesn't result only in possibilities of having lunch abroad but also cross-border commuting or domestic travelling across the territory of other country (e.g. about 10 direct trains a day from Vienna to Innsbruck via southern Germany).

You mean "affordable rates" for national USAge, right :)? As to international roaming, I think that you are ripped off by your operators just like we are :(.

As an American who just had to have more passport pages glued into his passport I resent the implication that we are all provincial Bafoons. Unfortunately, however, I have met some Americans who have led credence to this story. My wife was working on helping one of her organizations setup up a conference in Canada and some of the e-mails they received were a stitch. My favorite were the ones about whether they needed to only drink bottled water, avoid salads, and soft shelled fruits when dining in Toronto.

I forward a US number to my sim dejour and it works great. The problem comes when someone tries to send an SMS to that number.

There are idiots in every country, I assure you. :)

Seeing the American Idol contestant that thought Simon Cowell was from France didn't help Americans' case. :)

I assure you I know a lot of Americans who are very worldly and know a lot about other parts of the world. However, the vast majority of Americans to whom I have talked have never been to Canada. Conversely, the vast majority of Canadians to whom i have talked have been to the US several times, and that is what I base my comment upon.

Americans generally think they live in the greatest country in the world, and a large number feel there is no reason to leave, and act accordingly. I think I live in the greatest country in the world, but desire deeply to see the rest of it. I bet you're in the latter category. :)