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MATHA531 · 07-12-2005, 00:54

So what you're saying that by making local sims very attractive to foreigners, the local company is sort of encouraging people not to use their home roaming company but that should hardly be a concern of the local sim provider; again it seems to me they would want to sell as many sim packs as they can, especially to foreigners visiting their country. And although I am not one who thinks that everything in the world should be in English, it is an undeniable fact that English is the world's 2nd language witness the fact that in almost every international airport in the world signs are almost always in local language(s) and in English yada yada yada....that being the case if a company wants to pick up business from foreign visitors, then English should be available as an option for the voice menus.

Several years ago, when I first got my Orange FR sim during a visit to Paris, they had some of the menus available in English; since then that has been withdrawn. I have local sims in Ireland, Germany, France, Holland and the UK. Of course Ireland and the UK make voice menus available in English, not surprisingly so does Holland (although it took a while for me to figure out the Dutch commands to get this done) and the German one I have, vodafone DE also has voice menus in English although it took a couple of e mails to Vodafone in Germany to get it done but I did get it done....I have been told by Effendi that several of the Italian ones to also....but apprently the only one that does so in Germany is the one I have.

My basic use of the cards has always been to receive anyway with very very limited calling out...other than the UK and apprently Italy calling North America on local sims is very expensive and no cheaper than using my own home carrier (T Mobile US) and its overpriced international roaming rates...then about a year ago at around this time, we were kicking around on this forum buytel which turned out to be a disaster and then riiing came along which seems to have solved the problem and made local sims not very necessary. I went on a tour this past summer which included 5 days in Poland and a cuople of days in a bunch of the other countries in that region and I had been all prepared to buy a Polish sim at least and kept trying to figure out which Polish sim had English voice menus available but it became a moot point as soon as I got to Poland and discovered that riiing functioned almost perfectly as far as receiving calls was concerned and then discovered how to use enlinea and callbackworld and for the most part they functioned perfectly also. But as we all know, intermittent problems have been occurring with cbw and enlinea and I was pretty glad I had both the French and German sims towards the end of that trip....

But as with everything, I suppose it is how you intend to use the thing. If I were to settle down in a country for more than a week, I suppose local prepaids would be best as it would probably be necessary to make local calls. I spend much of my time out of the US visitng friends in London and so of course it is best for me to have British sims but they are pretty cheap both for local calls and for calls to North America, at least Orange, Virgin and now O2 with their free bolt on are and so is Mobile World despite its limited validity. But that's an exception.

I will be in Germany for about 3 or 4 days in January and then again this upcoming June and July so I suppose keeping my German Vodafone sim makes sense and since it is vodafone, I guess I can top up while in London with a vodafone voucher and with some of the difficulties riiing has experienced in France, I usually scramble to leave France with an Orange voucher for 10? to at least keep that sim active every 9 months. Other than that, it is riiing for me I suppose.

Unless some other carrier can come up with a better alternative for multi country travel and has voice menus available in English.

	(#11)
MATHA531 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Specialist Posts: 869 Join Date: 15 Oct 2004 Country:	07-12-2005, 00:54 So what you're saying that by making local sims very attractive to foreigners, the local company is sort of encouraging people not to use their home roaming company but that should hardly be a concern of the local sim provider; again it seems to me they would want to sell as many sim packs as they can, especially to foreigners visiting their country. And although I am not one who thinks that everything in the world should be in English, it is an undeniable fact that English is the world's 2nd language witness the fact that in almost every international airport in the world signs are almost always in local language(s) and in English yada yada yada....that being the case if a company wants to pick up business from foreign visitors, then English should be available as an option for the voice menus. Several years ago, when I first got my Orange FR sim during a visit to Paris, they had some of the menus available in English; since then that has been withdrawn. I have local sims in Ireland, Germany, France, Holland and the UK. Of course Ireland and the UK make voice menus available in English, not surprisingly so does Holland (although it took a while for me to figure out the Dutch commands to get this done) and the German one I have, vodafone DE also has voice menus in English although it took a couple of e mails to Vodafone in Germany to get it done but I did get it done....I have been told by Effendi that several of the Italian ones to also....but apprently the only one that does so in Germany is the one I have. My basic use of the cards has always been to receive anyway with very very limited calling out...other than the UK and apprently Italy calling North America on local sims is very expensive and no cheaper than using my own home carrier (T Mobile US) and its overpriced international roaming rates...then about a year ago at around this time, we were kicking around on this forum buytel which turned out to be a disaster and then riiing came along which seems to have solved the problem and made local sims not very necessary. I went on a tour this past summer which included 5 days in Poland and a cuople of days in a bunch of the other countries in that region and I had been all prepared to buy a Polish sim at least and kept trying to figure out which Polish sim had English voice menus available but it became a moot point as soon as I got to Poland and discovered that riiing functioned almost perfectly as far as receiving calls was concerned and then discovered how to use enlinea and callbackworld and for the most part they functioned perfectly also. But as we all know, intermittent problems have been occurring with cbw and enlinea and I was pretty glad I had both the French and German sims towards the end of that trip.... But as with everything, I suppose it is how you intend to use the thing. If I were to settle down in a country for more than a week, I suppose local prepaids would be best as it would probably be necessary to make local calls. I spend much of my time out of the US visitng friends in London and so of course it is best for me to have British sims but they are pretty cheap both for local calls and for calls to North America, at least Orange, Virgin and now O2 with their free bolt on are and so is Mobile World despite its limited validity. But that's an exception. I will be in Germany for about 3 or 4 days in January and then again this upcoming June and July so I suppose keeping my German Vodafone sim makes sense and since it is vodafone, I guess I can top up while in London with a vodafone voucher and with some of the difficulties riiing has experienced in France, I usually scramble to leave France with an Orange voucher for 10? to at least keep that sim active every 9 months. Other than that, it is riiing for me I suppose. Unless some other carrier can come up with a better alternative for multi country travel and has voice menus available in English.