Best practice international GSM setup

[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.