What is the best option for me? (Italy, France and Spain)

[xzxxzx]

Hi all,

I was starting to feel a bit cross-eyed from looking at so many different global sim card options and rates when I stumbled across this lovely site. Now I'm hoping some of you knowledgable people could help me out. Here's the situation; my two sisters and I will be going to 3 different countries (Italy, France, and Spain) for a very brief trip. By brief I mean; about 8 days in Italy, 4 days in Paris, and 4 days in Barcelona. I was wondering which global sim card you would recommend. Some factors that I would like taken into consideration would be:

1) We would only use these sim cards to make calls/text to each other. I've seem some global sim cards give calls within er.. network.. discounted rates.
2) How much the sim/credit costs combined with shipping rates to Canada.
3) How well it works... this is the part where I ask how annoying having call routed through Estonia is.

That's all I can really think of for now. Also, we all have phones that are unlocked and will work on the proper frequencies.

So far I like the look of MaxRoam overall but would love to find one similar that has a call-to-same-company-sim card-user-discount that works without too many problems.

Thank you for time and consideration!

[dg7feq]

As the rates within the EU are regulated you might want to concider just buying some italian cards after arrival.

Outside italy you can call each other for about 45ct/min + 13ct/min for the inbound call and text for 13ct.

Travelsim/Airbalticcard (Estonia) works very reliable, the rates are a bit cheaper (as the inbound charge is missing).

I never Maxroam so i cant say something about that provider.


EU regulated tariff from July 1st 2011:

- outbound calls within EU: 35ct+VAT
- inbound calls within EU: 11 ct+VAT
- outbound SMS within EU: 11ct +VAT
- inbound SMS always free of charge

Chris

[xzxxzx]

How is the call quality for airbalticcard? And do text go through instantly?

[dg7feq]

So far i did not encounter any problems with the airbalticcard. Free text messages over their website are transferred within one minute, from mobile phones instantly.

Chris