TAKE TWO! ONE WILL BE BETTER. Advice especially for newbies.

[Stu]

I gave my sister a Pirahna SIM. She has a corporate iPhone with an ATT SIM with international roaming active and she has been abroad within the last 60 days. Her most recent trip, her iPhone wouldn't log onto any tower in Russia and she used to Piranha. Somebody at ATT or her F500 IT department changed a setting an accidentally turned her international roaming off. Having a spare saved her bacon.

[rfranzq]

Thanks for the replies. I thought we would get more than two, though.

[snidely]

I'll add, belatedly, a reason for 2 SIMS as well as 2 phones.

Was in Vietnam a year ago and my T-Mobile (U.S.) Blackberry stopped working. Called CS and they said my SIM is dead because there was a limit of 100,000 "logins" to the system. I assume every time you disconnect and reconnect via going thru a tnnel or in a garage counted. Also counted jumping from GPRS, to EDGE, to 3G. I was told there was nothing they could do to reactivate my SIM. She said new SIMS don't have that limit. I was stuck using my wife's new Android - which also had T-Mobiles WiFi calling ability.
I now have a new SIM and got an extra virgin SIM (never activated). I also have at least 2 small unlocked dumb phones that I can put a card into. One of them has a Truphone SIM that I haven't used in a while, but still works.
Our next trip will be to China in April. I will get a Piranha SIM since they seem to have not only, by far the best voice rates, but good data rates as well.

Bottom line: 2 SIMS for my Blackberry. 2 dumbphones (Trufone, Piranha) Wife: An HTC Smartfone (Android).

[powerlifter]

Let me say this. The use of international sims is of good use to some people. I have used the two international card system, and both cards I chose at the time were bad choices. One went out of business, and the other did not work as promised. So I went to local sim cards. I have a toll free number that is on my business card that clients can reach me anywhere in the world that I happen to be in. Since I am always there on business never pleasure the locals can call me without the cost of an international call for them. Since I travel to certain countries most of the time I just do a top up before I leave, and it is ready the next time I come to the country. For calls home there is Skype which I use every day. I am not saying that international sim cards are bad, but they are not for everyone. YMMV.

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by snidely

Called CS and they said my SIM is dead because there was a limit of 100,000 "logins" to the system. I assume every time you disconnect and reconnect via going thru a tnnel or in a garage counted.

Long ago I read somewhere that a SIM had a limit on the number of power cycles due to some internal counter. It seemed like such a very large number that you could turn the phone off and on every day for your entire life before you reached the limit. I searched for this information recently but couldn't find anything.