Best practice international GSM setup

[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.