Cheapest sms with an international sim card?

[Dubrock]

Fishtext indeed looks very good! I think I'll go for that one. It looks better designed and you can change the number where your sending from. Ideal when traveling the world.

[Dubrock]

I just got a reaction from 02:

"The various GPRS Call Data Records (CDRs) generated for each session are consolidated into a single daily total. The daily total is then rounded up or down to the nearest Kbyte, based on the following rules:

Daily usage: 0 to 512 bytes: total sent for pricing is rounded down to 0 Kbytes. Daily usage: 513 to 1024 Kbytes: total sent for pricing is rounded up to 1 Kbyte. So usage of less than 512 bytes in a day will not be priced. Usage of 0.5 to 1.5 Kbytes in a day will be rounded to 1 Kbyte. Usage of 1.5 to 2.5 Kbytes will be rounded to 2 Kbytes, etc."

And they offer data roaming in Chili, Nicaragua, Jamaica, USA, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. So that's covered!

No data coverage in Bolivia, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, Fiji, Vanuatu, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Nepal though

Laos had pretty cool sms rates! to 10-15 countries its free, and to all other countries they charge 0.15 kip, which means you can send about 8300 sms for 1 eurocent

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by Dubrock

they charge 0.15 kip

[kctopitz]

Originally Posted by Dubrock

I just got a reaction from 02:

"The various GPRS Call Data Records (CDRs) generated for each session are consolidated into a single daily total. The daily total is then rounded up or down to the nearest Kbyte, based on the following rules:

Daily usage: 0 to 512 bytes: total sent for pricing is rounded down to 0 Kbytes. Daily usage: 513 to 1024 Kbytes: total sent for pricing is rounded up to 1 Kbyte. So usage of less than 512 bytes in a day will not be priced. Usage of 0.5 to 1.5 Kbytes in a day will be rounded to 1 Kbyte. Usage of 1.5 to 2.5 Kbytes will be rounded to 2 Kbytes, etc."

I'm assuming this is O2 UK. For everyone's reference, they charge £3/Megabyte within the EU and £6/MB worldwide (O2 roaming page here). This translates to just under £.003 per KB within the EU and £.006 per KB elsewhere. The latter is just over Virgin UK's £.005/KB, though that extra £.001 may be worth it for those wanting greater international coverage. Either way, it sounds like this is the cheapest option for low usage data roaming in Europe.

I do think they should specify that their billing is per KB. My first look at that pricing implies that you get charged in 1MB chunks.

[Dubrock]

This afternoon I send an sms with Fishtext and according to my Nokia around 700 bytes where send (sum of up- and download).

[andy]

Originally Posted by kctopitz

I'm assuming this is O2 UK. For everyone's reference, they charge £3/Megabyte within the EU and £6/MB worldwide (O2 roaming page here). [...] Either way, it sounds like this is the cheapest option for low usage data roaming in Europe.

3 UK is also £3/MB in Europe and several other countries including USA

but T-mobile UK cut its rates a couple of months ago to £1.50/MB

and I think someone on here has recently mentioned similar rates with other networks (T-mobile Germany?)

[Dubrock]

Well I know that it's interesting enough to buy a 02 uk card and have some credit from fishtext, there are enough countries where it works. Maybe it works for some of the countries as well where it's said there is no 3G but where nothing is written about gprs, when not I can always buy a local prepaid or use one of my international cards. The countries where it where it works according to the site of 02 already saves me enough.

[kctopitz]

Originally Posted by andy

3 UK is also £3/MB in Europe and several other countries including USA and Japan

but T-mobile UK cut its rates a couple of months ago to £1.50/MB

and I think someone on here has recently mentioned similar rates with other networks (T-mobile Germany?)

For 3 UK prepaid, it's £3 in the EU, but not all of Europe. They have no roaming in Norway, for instance. Japan is not covered (maybe you were looking at the post-paid, Andy?) and neither are quite a few major spots: Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, and it looks like they're missing all of South America and a lot of Asia. Some places where they do have coverage don't have data access (i.e. India).

It is a good deal for data roaming in the US, which is a worthy point since getting a prepaid SIM in the US isn't as easy as it is elsewhere in the world, and the only ones that do data are AT&T ($ 0.01/KB) or T-Mobile (with a $1/day Sidekick package).

As for T-Mobile UK, £1.50/MB is a great deal for roaming the EU (again, not including Norway) but everywhere outside the EU is £7.50/MB. I suppose that's only slightly worse than £6/MB when you're talking about using only a few KB of data. Their coverage list is pretty extensive, with multiple partners in a lot of countries. No coverage in Nepal. No GPRS in Bolivia. (Random checks, those two.)

[kctopitz]

Originally Posted by Dubrock

I just got a reaction from 02:

And they offer data roaming in Chili, Nicaragua, Jamaica, USA, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. So that's covered!

No data coverage in Bolivia, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, Fiji, Vanuatu, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Nepal though

Using O2's international coverage check, it gave this info under the network specific information for Panama:

"You can use GPRS data services and media messaging on this network.

O2 customers roaming on this network will not be able to use 3G services."

Nepal and Peru also say you will not be able to use 3G services but with no mention of GPRS at all. These countries may simply not have HSDPA or UMTS, but still have GPRS or EDGE, which is all you need for sending SMS as mentioned in this thread. I would guess that's the case but it would be worth inquiring if you're headed to one of the above mentioned countries - except Myanmar, which only seems to have one network at this point and no realistic options for phone service as a foreigner.

[inquisitor]

Nepal and Peru in fact don't have 3G-networks, as you can see at the GSM.