Best practice international GSM setup

[fsotirop]

Originally Posted by hwa

In post #15 (page 2) fsotirop mentions that the airbalticcard offers a UK number, but I can't seem to find any information to that effect on their website. Can someone point me to the relevant section on their website and/or confirm that you can get one from the account management section of the site once you have a card?

you have to contact them via email or through the online account (after you sign in) in order to request the free UK mobile numer to be attached to your account.
UK number: FREE. 0,15eur./call
US number: 0,50eur./month. 0,15eur./minute

[hwa]

Thanks!

[fsotirop]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

OK, I can't help myself. I almost started a new thread but decided not to. I am curious about the SIMs on the 'Travelsim platform'.
TravelSim
airbalticcard
xxsim.com
OneSimCard
Is this all of them?

OK. What are the differences? Only Onesimcard is in US dollars[& based in the US], everything else in Euros?
They all seem to have a way to get decent US rates.
Do all use both AT&T and T-Mobile for US networks?

What have been your experience if you are a user?
Any one that should be avoided at all cost??--what happened?

How well do they work in Europe?
Where do they not work?

If you need USD billing consider EUROSIM http://eng.eurosim.travel/ of the CAMEL platform, their rates (both calls and data) are much cheaper than the ones of onesimcard (TRAVELSIM platform).
plus billing per second for outgoing calls with EU (onesimcard per minute)..plus data billing per 1kb within EU (onesimcard per 10kb)
plus minimum topoup just $10 .while for onesimcard minimum topup $25
plus unlimited validity of the simcard and the credit (never expire), when onesimcard's credit expire after just 10months from the last topup

buying EUROSIM simcards costs half the price of onesimcard. search e bay for seller igorzzz

in USA Camel platform simcards work very good on both AT&T and T-MOBILE. tested personally.
Since the last 2years I have used camel-platform simcards within almost all European countries, their simcards worked at all times without any problem. their simcards are preset to register to "prefered" vodafone brand networks, but you can switch to other networks (non-Vodafone) manually.

when roaming in US calling to other countries with EUROSIM: $0,45/min... ONESIMCARD calling to other countries from US: $0,49/min. incoming calls free at both cases.


EUROSIM and all other based Camel-platform simcards have special data rates of 0,99 USD (0,69EUR. for euro billing simcards) per 1MB in the following countries: Australia, Azerbaijan, Albania, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Jersey, Egypt, India, Iceland, China, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Singapore, USA, Turkey, Switzerland, South Africa, Japan.

But from my experience as a world traveller with almost all internetional simcards in the market used all these years, for non-EU based customers or without an EU mobile, for roaming within EU countries I recommend PIRANHA http://www.piranha-mobile.com/index....tegory&path=20 . http://www.eurekago.com/en/tariffs/ for roaming withinin EU countries.
Piranha has significantly lower data rates but with data billing per 128kb (Eureka billing per 10kb. 0,25eur./mb within Europe)
Eureka offers free incoming calls to 70countries (including all European countries and most of Asian countries)...and the most important? the rate to call their number prefix (+4207910) is very low! Eureka I think also accept USD payments (but not 100% sure)


My above recommendation is only for non-EU based customers or without an EU mobile, for roaming within EU countries.:
For customers seeking reliability (usually bussiness customers) I recommend Camel-platform simcards
For customers seeking lower possible rates (usually private customers) I recommend: Piranha or EUREKA . (Eureka is a bit better, only because they don't charge for unaswered outgoing calls-MTC -Mobile Termination Charge- as Piranha does).

PAY ATTENTION: for roaming within EU countries the first and only you first have to consider is "HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO CALL THE NUMBER ATTACHED TO EACH INTERNATIONAL SIMCARD"

[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.

[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.