Quote:
Originally Posted by Ukap
I am going to the United Kingdom for work for 2 months. I have an unlocked phone that will work in Europe including UK.
I know my best deal is to buy a SIM when I arrive in UK. Could anyone advise me on the best deals they have seen.
Also - I will be giving my UK cell number out to my work associates in the USA. I will be able to receive their calls for free. However, what is the best value plan/company for my friends in the USA to use when dialing a UK cell phone number?
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There have been answers to this in other threads but I'll give you some suggestions. Rates in the UK to the USA can be a bargain and are easy to acquire and of course in most of the country English is widely spoken.
Start with Mobile World, available at Carphone Warehouse stores only. Sim card is free but you pay for air time. Thus for £10 you get a free sim card and £10 worth of call credit. Calls to both the USA and Canada cost 5p/minute....you get all the "perks" of a local sim namely a UK number and free reception of calls while in the UK. Calls to other UK networks aren't too expensive as well as calls to UK landlines. Disadvantage of Mobile World is limited shelf life (90 day requirement for at least one phone call) and since it doesn't allow roaming, you can't get around that from outside the country. But since the sim is free, if you use up most of the call credit, it's no big deal (unless you feel it's a pain to inform people of your new number) as all you need do is buy new airtime with a new free sim next time you visit. (BTW calls to the USA and Canada between 1900 and 2100 have a 50% surcharge and cost 7.5 p/minute).
Orange has announced Orange Abroad....they charge £1 for the sim cardon the web; don't know how expensive they would be if bought at an Orange store in London. Also feature 5p/minute calls to the USA and Canada with the usual perks. Available at all Orange stores and one would presume any mobile phone store carrying Orange (Carphone Warehouse, phones4u, the link)
T Mobile UK....they were advertising free sim cards on their web site and before I visited London last January, they sent a free sim card to my hotel...do not come with any airtime but a quick visit to any chemist, electronics store and whatever with the swipe card and is easy to fund. Did price it out as £5 for a sim card at a T Mobile UK store.....they have a bundle which you purchase via text message or call to customer service of £2 for 50 minute of call time to the USA and Canada; this seems to be billed in 1 second intervals...validity is 60 days but one would suppose you simply buy another bundle (terms and conditions mention something to the effect only 6 bundles are allowed at one time but I haven't figured out exactly what that means)...
Both Orange and T Mobile UK have reuirements that a billable action take place every 180 days but since they allow roaming you can meet that by downloading a ringtone as I did for 9p (or sending a text message) from the USA to keep sim cards active.
There may be others...O2 UK had a bundle that reduced price of calls to USA to 15p/minute...Virgin Mobile charges 20p/minute for calls to the USA although if you make lots of domestic calls in the UK, a 5 minute call to the USA will reduce domestic rate ot landlines on Virgin Mobile to 5p/minute. Vodafone, although it has a nice program called Vodafone Passport which is somewhat helpful if you are roaming within Europe, charges an arm and a leg, about a quid or even more per minute for calls to the USA so they are not a viable alternative.
There are plenty of choices and with the right choice, calls to the USA along with free reception of calls are very easy when visiting the UK!