Best practice international GSM setup

[fsotirop]

especially for low volume personal customers high rate termination travel simcards are good ONLY for roaming outside EU countries.
Roaming within any of the 27EU countries with any high termination travel simcards (such as IOM, ESTONIAN or Latvian numbers) you simply lose money, both you as a simcard owner, and more worst in most cases also the people calling you lose money (and they don't know it until the get their telephone bill!.

For example in BRAZIL is one case of a non-EU country where the Wold Soccer Cup will take place this summer, where high termination simcards worth to have them with you.
-CAMEL-plattform (3712)
incoming calls: eur.0,00 ($0), outgoing calls: 0,50euro-billing/min. ($0,69/min. usd-billing simcards) ,data: 16,38euro /mb euro-billing sim($20,60/mb usd-billing)

-TRAVELSIM platform (+3725)
incoming calls: 0,25eur./min. ($0,35 usd-billing simcards) , outgoing: 0,75euro-billing/min. ($0,9/min. usd-billing simcards) , data: 25euro/mb euro-billing sim ($35/mb usd-billing cards)

-IOM or Cloud9 platform* (+447)
incoming: 0,14eur./min. euro-billing ($0.1124/min. usd-billing simcards) , outgoing calls: 0,46euro-billing/min. ($0,3924/min. usd-billing simcards) , data: 0,69euro/mb for euro-billing sim ($0,96/mb usd-billing cards)


*rates from IOM or Cloud9 platform resellers are highly variable, those quoted above (for both euro & usd billing) are the lowest one found among all IOM or Cloud9 platform resellers. for euro billing lowest rates are from mysims2go http://www.mysims2go.com/tariffcalcu...iid=23&lang=en , for USD billing from CLOUD-ROAM http://www.cloud-roam.net/Default.as...dex=2&SIndex=1

[fsotirop]

for IOM or Cloud9 platform (+447) simcards, i personally stay away from both "big players"... both Ekit and Maxroam. especially their voice rates are unacceptable high.

[hwa]

Thank you for your recommendations fsotirop. I have been going back and forth between what would be a good compromise of ease of use and rates. Right now I'm leaning heavily towards Piranha. They have:
- a free US number (I'm US based, so callers don't have to worry about where I am)
- very decent incoming and outgoing rates

The way I see it is that with Estonian, Latvian, IOM, what have you numbers the callers pays a hefty premium, if they can reach the number in the 1st place. So yes, with Piranha you don't have free incoming, but it's still cheaper than calling Estonia & the likes.

Am I missing something?

-edit-
I'm not concerned with data. If it's cheap I may use it, if not then nothing is lost. I do travel all over, not just one particular continent or region. My primary needs are voice and text/sms, being able to call the US and receive calls from the US.

telna would be my 2nd choice, they have slight higher rates and the annual fee.

[fsotirop]

Originally Posted by hwa

Thank you for your recommendations fsotirop. I have been going back and forth between what would be a good compromise of ease of use and rates. Right now I'm leaning heavily towards Piranha. They have:
- a free US number (I'm US based, so callers don't have to worry about where I am)
- very decent incoming and outgoing rates

The way I see it is that with Estonian, Latvian, IOM, what have you numbers the callers pays a hefty premium, if they can reach the number in the 1st place. So yes, with Piranha you don't have free incoming, but it's still cheaper than calling Estonia & the likes.

Am I missing something?

-edit-
I'm not concerned with data. If it's cheap I may use it, if not then nothing is lost. I do travel all over, not just one particular continent or region. My primary needs are voice and text/sms, being able to call the US and receive calls from the US.

telna would be my 2nd choice, they have slight higher rates and the annual fee.

It all depends on where you are roaming and where you are based. For your case (US based) Piranha I think is best choice for you.
Even for Europe roaming from US customers I don't recommend Toggle (except for heavy users), short exparation of the credit , plus 25UKpounds minimum topup .
Even if US customers roam in Europe, I suggest Piranha or EVRIKA (Chezh republic +4207910) with very low termination rate to their numbers ($0.02 to $0.03/minute)..so you can forward a US DID number to their +4207910 via a voip provider (eg zadarma,, telecallmart, etc) with a very low connecting cost and free incoming calls to the simcard to all european countries, including SWitzerland, Turkey, Russia. Plus free incoming calls to some other non-european countries as China, Australia, SouthAfrica etc)

For data only US customers roaming in Europe I strongly suggest https://gigsky.com with excellent prepaid plans on all European countries of
$25.00 175 MB 7 Days
$35.00 300 MB 14 Days
$50.00 500 MB 30 Days

But if small data sessions is the case, Piranha new data rates of $0,15/mb in most Euporean countries is a good alternative

For very heavy data roaming users in Europe I suggest a Vodafone Italy prepaid simcard bought here http://www.mobipassport.com.au/Vodaf...-p/voda-eu.htm or here: http://www.europasim.com/epages/6335...ops%2F63355149 (same product)

with €3 per day you get all round Europe:

500MB Internet (Speed reduced after first 500MB)
50 SMS (Additional SMS is €0.11/SMS)
25 min Outbound calls within EU (Additional usage €0.35/min)
25 min inbound calls within EU (additional usage €0.10/min)

[MBK]

Originally Posted by fsotirop

Even for Europe roaming from US customers I don't recommend Toggle (except for heavy users), short exparation of the credit , plus 25UKpounds minimum topup .

Piranha is more expensive for calls & sms + they charge for incoming calls. This is absolutely not interesting compared to Toggle in the Toggle countries.

Furthermore, min reload is not 25 £ but 20£, which gives you 20£ + 10% = 22£ credit.

Credit NEVER expires as long as you are using your SIM at least once every 4 months (call, sms or data charge). This means, if you want to be an extreme saver, that you never have to recharge your SIM as long as you have enough credit for this (ex: 1 data charge of 0.0002 every 4 months).

Really, if you are making so little use of the SIM that a 20£ reload is too much, then I can't see how it would make sense to go through the trouble of ordering a roaming SIM. Just use your normal T-Mobile or AT&T plan for those few minutes you need.

That said, of course if other non-toggle countries are part of your journey, other SIMS like Piranha should be taken into account.

[MBK]

It all depends on how and where you are roaming.

For limited roaming in some areas, Piranha is good. For Europe & US toggle counties Toggle is best, etc..

For the worldwide traveller, especially if you are using a dual sim phone, the Travelsims (airbaltic, onesimcard, Travelsims,...) are the best in my experience.

- if +372 is expensive to call airbaltic has free UK number, with 0.15 PER call.
- free incoming in 154 countries (even with 0 credit)
- free forwarding to 154 countries (even with 0 credit)
- most solid, stable, roaming I have seen
- no credit expiration for 2 years with airbaltic


And the advantage is that you will always be reachable on the same number as if in some countries another sim is preferable, you can forward your +372 for free to that other sim number. (best is dual sim anyway if you are serious about roaming).

[hwa]

Thanks for your thoughts MBK. Now, if I'm really serious about roaming I'd get a sat phone. But I'm looking for a compromise that is easy for me, easy for the caller, and doesn't break the bank. I'm not looking for the absolute rock bottom price option, I want as cheap as possible without it getting too complicated for me, or costly for my callers.

I would say (with a high degree of certainty) that none of my callers (all US based) have cheap international dialing, or international dialing at all. I do have GoogleVoice and Betamax/Dellmont but I don't want to setup forwarding and such. Too many moving parts. So even the UK number for Airbaltic can be problematic. Credit on Piranha does not expire for over a year, which works for me.

All of the above leads me to Piranha, unless holes can be poked in my reasoning or there's another provider out there that does the same but cheaper (or better, or more countries, or whatever)

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by hwa

All of the above leads me to Piranha, unless holes can be poked in my reasoning or there's another provider out there that does the same but cheaper (or better, or more countries, or whatever)

You might also want to take a look at TelnaMobile. You can get a local US phone number, so your US callers don't even have to dial 1+. Most calling rates are reasonable but their data is too high to be of any real use. Rather than being prepaid, they charge you about $20/y for the account and then charge just for usage. One thing that appeals to me about this arrangement is that over they years I've lost several hundred dollars on prepaids that either expired or went out of business. If Telna were to go "toes up" today, the most I'd be out would be the residue or $20, prorated over how many months I have until that fee renews.

[hwa]

Thanks DRNewcomb. Telna is my 2nd choice, as mentioned in post 135 above. Rates are a little higher and they have the $19 annual fee. My cash outlay on a prepaid balance would never be more then $19, so if Piranha goes under I wouldn't lose much more than I would if telna goes under.

[rfranzq]

TAKE TWO! ONE WILL BE BETTER.

Piranha is a good choice. You do not mention what phone you have.
Having a second/different SIM will provide some hopefully failsafe protection if you need to be more sure of your ability to call out. A dualSIM phone makes that second SIM more practical and easier to use.