Advice for ppd SIM for both UK and France?
 

I'm a newbie to international GSM & am looking for advice.

I will be in the UK for a month while my son is in France, and I want to stay in touch by mobile phone. I plan to buy 2 GSM phones (on eBay, etc) am trying to find SIM cards that make the most sense. I'll use mine to call within UK and call his mobile France, and he'll use his to call within France and to my mobile in the UK. So mobile-to-mobile pricing, with free incoming calls, would be important. As he's a teenager, I expect there will be a need for text messages, also.

I've been directed to Vodafone because, according to a resident of the area, it has good cell coverage in the north of Scotland where I'll be most of the time.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Pass on France
 

IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO A LANDLINE in the UK, I think you will do better with a calling card for calling to your son in FR. I'll have to defer to our British friends for advice and details. The VODA-passport should let you call overseas on 1 call for .75 pounds, which is not cheap for a short call.

Our French and other more knowledgeable friends will correct me if I am wrong. For your son in FR, I have never been impressed with mobile rates in FR; quite hi it seems to me. Not sure they have any MVNOs. They family and I are going for 2 weeks this summer and I already have a UM+ card, a TravelSIM from Estonia and a SUNSIM from Germany. We don't plan to buy and FR sims while there. I believe the outbound rates from our currents sims to FR landlines is 39 ecents and 59 ecents to mobiles. Apart from any special rates which one can add on to the FR sims for a certain "prix", these rates are reasonable and comparable to most FR prepaids. Not really expecting any inbounds, but on the TravelSIM and UM+ those will be free. TRUE, we might be calling on another, but there is always the SMS. Another bad side for the FR sim -- I believe one of our members wrote me -- calling "toll free" numbers with your FR sim is NOT a free call. Again, if son would have access to landline, I believe the old stand by calling card would be better for international calls to you in the UK.

There may be other fancier options using data either over the phone or with a PC or laptop, but you don't mention whether you or your son will have access to such devices.

See what others write.

Bon voyage!

Stan

One more thing about FR. Validity. Days, weeks or months. Not very good if you or he want to return in a year or two. Seems you would do well just to let it expire. I had a bad experience in Malta; just was not worth it to keep it going.

If you or he plan on doing other international traveling, you might consider an international card.

Stan

Thanks for the suggestions. No, we're not planning to take laptops, so int'l calling cards might be the way to go.

By the way, incoming calls are free all over the world, except the US, Canada, China and a handfull of other places. So incoming calls in the UK with a UK SIM and in France with a french SIM won't be charged... Now you'll have to do some homework on prepaidgsm.net to find which carrier in the UK offers the best price for calls to France and vice-versa...

The set EU tarrifs for roaming are 24 cent/minute for incoming calls while roaming in another EU country and 49 cent/minute for outbound calls to another EU country (and home country) while roaming in the EU... From August 2008 it's going to be 22 cents inbound and 46 cent outbound... But since both of you will be fixed in one of the two countries, each one of you will use a local SIM in order for you to have free incoming calls and just try to find out which offer gives you the best deal for calls to each other's country.

Any experts, FR and UK?
 

Do we have any better advice for our new member from our FR and UK experts?

Thanks,

Stan

if he is calling france a lot a few mvno's have started of late here in the uk that are specialising in calling abroad.....


Nomi mobile
lebara
orange pre pay (camel plan)
talk talk world (from the carphone warehouse)
idt mobile
there are probably more...

there web addresses are

orange: www.orange.co.uk and follow the links for pre pay
talk talk: www.carphonewarehouse.com and follow the links...
lebara http://lebara.co.uk/en/
nomi: https://www.nomi-mobile.com/
idt: http://www.idtmobile.co.uk/

Calling between two roaming SIMs might be a viable solution as you really want to avoid paying any incoming call charge or roaming charge.

France - UK Calling Another GeoSIM Mobile £0.38 ($0.72)
UK - France Calling Another GeoSIM Mobile £0.32 ($0.60)

Receiving calls is free in both countries. 6 second billing.

If either of you change countries, then you are both always only calling the UK number.

details on www.globalsimcard.co.uk

"Other SIMs are available"

The UK has many advantageous prepaid sim offers...may I refer you to www.yourcallworld.com which explains how you can make calls in the UK to other country's landlines for as little as 3p/minute (although calls to mobiles outside places such as the USA and Canada are somewhat more expensive) using a T Mobile UK sim card (it also explains how to obtain a T Mobile UK sim card for next to nothing)...along with it comes free reception of calls while in the UK. That is probably as of today the best deal in the UK.

The big 3 in France are pretty expensive but at least calling the UK isn't terribly bad as they do subscribe (of course they had little choice) to the new eurotariffs...whichever you choose you get the free reception of calls while in France (what is it, 0,32€/minute or somthing like that to make calls from France within the eu or you can go the direction suggested by Mr. Ed who I believe works for one of the international sim companies; the only downer in this is that you would get a +44 (although not UK, considered by most telcoms to be UK) number which might not be reachable via yourcall world. Also as noted, the French sim cards come with very limited validity and they steal your credit after very limited periods of time (this is something the eu should be on) so if you go to France annually, you have to get a new sim card every year.

I don't know if it is true that vodafone coverage in Scotland is so much dramatically better than T Mobile UK that its much higher prices to call internationally are worth it; only a British "expert" can answer that for you......so as of today, and understand it can change tomorrow, probably the best solution is a T Mobile UK pay as you go sim card in the UK using yourcall world for out of country calls, and a French payg in France (knowing full well the limitations of the French carriers).....

What a ramble.

Regarding coverage in Northern Scotland

Most roaming SIMs will use any network available, which may of benefit in certain areas where one network may not have such good coverage as another. In this instance the global SIM will simply register on the network that has coverage.