International or National SIM?

[jhanlon]

One of the OP's factors that has not been mentioned is "reasonable rates to call the US." If the SIM that you choose has free incoming calls, then your best bet for calls to the US is probably a call-back service like Callback World, which is the one that I use.

[andy]

Originally Posted by jhanlon

One of the OP's factors that has not been mentioned is "reasonable rates to call the US." If the SIM that you choose has free incoming calls, then your best bet for calls to the US is probably a call-back service like Callback World, which is the one that I use.

Some German SIMs, such as Solomo Pro and Fonic, have rates of 9 cents a minute to USA, cheaper than Callbackworld and almost all callback providers

[9eor9]

If you'd like to use your (or one of your SIMs) SIM for long duration calls to the US and other countries I can recommend you

CallYa OpenEnd Talk&SMS ? Prepaid-Wiki

This is a Vodafone CallYa Prepaid tariff called CallYa Open End Talk&SMS which will be charged with 29€ct per call to german landline.

The CallYa SIMs are very cheap now as they usually come with a simlocked mobile. You may find even offers for 1€ with 10€ balance.

With this method you call DialNow | Cheap International Calls and any further minute to the US will cost you an additional €0,5ct.

For data (9€ct/min) this card is not as cheap as others (i.e.blau.de) which are 24€ct/MB

Detailed info on German prepaid offers you'll find on Prepaid-Wiki

For international use I like my airBalticcard | About airBalticcard Mobile (no data!).

[Motel75]

Originally Posted by jhanlon

One of the OP's factors that has not been mentioned is "reasonable rates to call the US." If the SIM that you choose has free incoming calls, then your best bet for calls to the US is probably a call-back service like Callback World, which is the one that I use.

All European SIMs have free incoming calls in the country of origin (and the cost is capped when roaming within the EU to about 20 cents/min, depending on the local VAT rate). As mentioned above, several German SIMs have 9 cent/min calls to the US. Solomo is probably the best deal overall, but only available online. Fonic is also 9 cents, and widely available in drugstores and supermarkets. Both offer 24 cent/MB standard data rate.