Dual SIM card by SimCardGlobal.com - why do I need dual SIM

RoadRunnerUS

Friends,

I recently found an International dual SIM card on SimCardGlobal.com

Their rates are very cheap, serving like 200 countries and I understand they offer both US and UK numbers on the same SIM card which sound cool. What I didn't understand is what is the advantage of having an additional US number on the same SIM? If I live in Australia and travel to US, it will cost my callers the same to call UK or US number, so why do I need this extra number?

Can someone explain and shed some light on it? Thanks.

RoadRunnerUS

Effendi · 28-10-2009, 14:17

Calling a British mobile costs MUCH more than calling a US number. BTW these multi IMSI simcards all have a double prefix in order to have good rates in the US too.

PhotoJim · 28-10-2009, 14:49

Also, you will pay for incoming calls on the US number but in many countries, not on the UK number.

You can decide for yourself if it's better for callers to pay more and you less, or vice versa.

Also, as mentioned above, if you use the US side of your card (which still receives incoming calls from the UK number), the rates are a tiny fraction of what you'll pay using the UK side. The same applies in Canada although the rates are slightly higher.

MATHA531 · 28-10-2009, 15:11

I haven't analyzed all the rates on the web site referred to above but I will say this....if you go to ebay, you will find two very similar products, one offered for $9 with $3 shipping (although this is to the USA, I don't know how much it is to ship to other places) and $20 (also with $3 shipping)...you can read up about the subtle differences....

RoadRunnerUS · 29-10-2009, 05:56

Thank you guys for the quick answer.

Matha531, I am not sure I understand your answer. It is not only buying the card, but also to have a worldwide network to use it. Can you be more specific on the cards you mentioned. Are they coming also with call plans?

General question by a newbie... What are all these networks mentioned at the bottom of the message of Effendi and PhotoJim? It look to me like an advertising, which I am sure it is not!

Effendi · 29-10-2009, 07:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadRunnerUS

General question by a newbie... What are all these networks mentioned at the bottom of the message of Effendi and PhotoJim? It look to me like an advertising, which I am sure it is not!

that's just a signature; it shows the prepaid simcards from different countries and operators that I bought in the bast

MATHA531 · 29-10-2009, 12:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadRunnerUS

Thank you guys for the quick answer.

Matha531, I am not sure I understand your answer. It is not only buying the card, but also to have a worldwide network to use it. Can you be more specific on the cards you mentioned. Are they coming also with call plans?

General question by a newbie... What are all these networks mentioned at the bottom of the message of Effendi and PhotoJim? It look to me like an advertising, which I am sure it is not!

These are e-kit cards which has been specializing in the international card market for a while.....basically you buy a card from some company which has agreements with a world wide collection of companies....For years, e-kit had a card with a UK(+44) number which worked in something like 120 countries in the world.....in each case it was based on a roaming agreement so if you used the card in Germany, you wouldn't be on e-kit, you would be on some Germany mobile company say Vodafone DE with which the card has an agreement.

The e-kit cards work exactly the same way as many of the other international cards based on the Isle of Man have worked, there are subtle differences in coverage but as a general rule, they work in all of Western Europe, Central Europe and a good part of Eastern Europe, as well as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan (although you need a phone with Japanese frequqncies and technologies).....

The gist of these cards is as noted: If you are travelling say in Western Europe, people can call you on either the UK(+44) number in which case they pay for whatever their long distance carrier charges for a call to a UK mobile number or on the USA (+1) number in which case they pay for whatever their ld carrier charges for a call to a US number. Note that calls to US (and Canadian) numbers do not distinguish between landlines and mobiles...you don't pay any surcharge to call a US number even if it is amobile....on your end, if you are in the countries these companies list as Zone 1 (the list is on ebay with the card) you pay nothing to receive the call if made on the +44 number and 19¢ (US) per minute if received on the US number...calls within zone 1 cost 49¢/minute (US) with a 35¢ set up fee to landlines and all US and Canadian numbers, and 84¢/minute to mobile throughout most of the zone 1 (their terminology) world. Outside zone 1, rates increase tremendously.

The $9 USA Simple card (with $3 shipping at least to the USA) works very well for a traveller to most of the touristy places in Europe. (After all, for $12 how can you really go wrong?). As noted, there are subtle differences in the rate structure between these cards and the international cards offered by several companies on the Isle of Man but the later cards, as well as the one you referred to, are somewhat more expensive (the one country that comes to mind as one of those providers correctly pointed out is Bulgaria).....but again take a look at the offering on ebay and if you have any questions, post them here and somebody I am sure will try to help you.

bbob · 29-10-2009, 13:45

Read the small print, I always hate this but many things are hidden in these terms these days.

All incoming calls to the USA number are subject to an additional $0.30 per minute surcharge

The is also a $21 fee to be paid each year to keep the sim active.

Also when looking at the mainpage it says you wil get both a uk and us number but nowhere does it say that receiving calls on the US will cost you extra. Only when looking at the rates there is a * mark saying you will pay extra.

I really don't like this kind of marketing as many people don't check the rates or forget to see the * saying it will cost more.

Just buy the ekit sim on ebay, no yealry fee, good support, good backend where you can clearly see what the costs are.

RoadRunnerUS · 30-10-2009, 00:16

OK guys, thanks to your help I was able to get the right ad for e-kit on e-bay. I think their rates are outrageous, and I wonder how come bbob was not paying attention to it. The initial kit is cheap indeed, only $9, but they are going to eat you alive on air time and connection fees.

Let’s see a 10 minutes call on e-kit from UK to a mobile number in France, or any other country in Europe. After all, we are buying the phone to travel overseas, aren’t we? So 10 minutes at $0.84, will cost me $8.40. Now let’s read the fine lines… On each call send or received they are charging me additional $0.35 connection fee, and hey, lets not forget the $0.19 surcharge per minute on a call on your US number. So this little call ended up to be $8.75 if you used the +44 number and $10.65 if you used your US number (why would I do that?). Same call on SimCardGlobal.com Cheap International dual SIM cards and global roaming, will cost you only $5.20 or 40% less! The difference in the initial pricing is going to evaporate in a week.

A10 minutes incoming call received in Russia will cost $18.75 on e-kit and ZERO on SimCardGlobal. Who is buying this crap from e-kit?

e-kit are charging 10 cents on each SMS received, which no other company in the business is doing. And as I mentioned, they are charging 19 cents per minute on any call received on the US number. And how about e-kit airtime credit expires after 30 days while most the others never expires their credit!

I checked other sites like MobilityPass local and International roaming Internet Access provider, WiFi hotspot, 3G, Toll Free, Dial-up, Broadband, wireless and mobile internet. or OneSimCard - Prepaid International SIM Card and World Cell Phones, and they are all beating e-kit to death. Mobilitypass, according to another post I saw here, require you to always have at least $25 airtime credit on your account, and in a month you made calls under $5, they charge you $5 anyhow… pretty dirty tricks. I didn’t saw this with SimCardGlobal, and I think their rates are very competitive.

Bottom line – buy e-kit and you are doing the mistake of your life. You get it cheap to begin with, but you ended up paying more, much more, much, much more.

MATHA531 · 30-10-2009, 00:53

Roadrunner...

It depends on a lot of factors and depends on your use. To characterize e-kit as a mistake might not be true in all cases but nobody said for all people it is the best.

For me, my travelling is in Western, Central and parts of Eastern Europe. I go to Scandanavia, it's perfect for me...I don't call many European mobiles if any...I might make a call or two to a local restaurant. If I'm going to be in a burgh for a while, I might go for a local sim.

My chief use of the card is to receive calls as economically as possible. I can always ask somebody who I call to call me back. I use my regular t mobile USA phone for text messaging...on my plan it's free to receive text messages I believe all over the world...it costs me only 35¢ to send a text message...also I have local British sims and their rates outside of Britain are not any better than e-kit....there are a few other Isle of Man international cards and at least on this forum we have discovered they all have fair usage policies (that means if you only use the cards to receive calls and make too few outgoing calls, they cut you off), annual fees and other goodies in the fine print.

Now, your needs may be different than mine. For exame, I still have an Air Baltic card which uses Estonian originating numbers...its rate in Russia is very reasonable but it has high rates to and from Estonia whereas e-kit treats Estonia as zone 1...free incoming via the +44 and 19¢ incoming via +1...you figure out why....

Unfortunately the international sim card business has been very unstable recently. Until the last year, we had O9 in Iceland, United Mobile in both Liechtenstein and the isle of Jersey and they had better rates than e-kit.

But agin for everybody, it's the way they use the phone that is the determining factor and believe me I don't espouse getting 5 or 6 different sim cards for international travel but as long as I am reachable, if I call home I can always ask the person I call to call me right back and they have no problems calling me on the +1 number.

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	(#1)
RoadRunnerUS (Offline) Junior Member Newbie Posts: 8 Join Date: 27 Oct 2009 Country:	Dual SIM card by SimCardGlobal.com - why do I need dual SIM - 27-10-2009, 21:01 Friends, I recently found an International dual SIM card on SimCardGlobal.com Their rates are very cheap, serving like 200 countries and I understand they offer both US and UK numbers on the same SIM card which sound cool. What I didn't understand is what is the advantage of having an additional US number on the same SIM? If I live in Australia and travel to US, it will cost my callers the same to call UK or US number, so why do I need this extra number? Can someone explain and shed some light on it? Thanks. RoadRunnerUS

	(#2)
Effendi (Offline) The great Dictator! Prepaid Prophet Posts: 2,487 Join Date: 13 Jan 2004 Location: Trieste/Trst Country:	28-10-2009, 14:17 Calling a British mobile costs MUCH more than calling a US number. BTW these multi IMSI simcards all have a double prefix in order to have good rates in the US too. Working Prepaids: IT: Wind, Vodafone IT, UNO Mobile; SM: Prima; UK: 3, Virgin; INT: TravelSIM, Truphone. Deceased Prepaids: CZ: Oskar, Eurotel; SK: Orange; DE: E-Plus, Aldi, Simyo; GE: Geocell; AM: Armentel; PL: Heyah, Plus; LT: Tele2; LV: Amigo; EE: Elisa; UA: Kyivstar; NZ: Vodafone; INT: UM, UM+, ICQSim. GSM/3G Phones: Nokia Lumia 630 dual sim

	(#3)
PhotoJim (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Expert Posts: 389 Join Date: 10 Dec 2006 Location: Regina, SK, CA Country:	28-10-2009, 14:49 Also, you will pay for incoming calls on the US number but in many countries, not on the UK number. You can decide for yourself if it's better for callers to pay more and you less, or vice versa. Also, as mentioned above, if you use the US side of your card (which still receives incoming calls from the UK number), the rates are a tiny fraction of what you'll pay using the UK side. The same applies in Canada although the rates are slightly higher. CA: SaskTel, Wind postpaid; Rogers, Bell postpaid iPad flex plans; US: T-Mobile postpaid data, prepaid voice; PureTalk (AT&T MVNO) prepaid voice/data; AT&T prepaid iPad plan Hardware: Too much but notably iPhone 5, iPad Mini Retina LTE, Moto G LTE (N.A. version), iPhone 4. All unlocked.

	(#4)
MATHA531 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Specialist Posts: 869 Join Date: 15 Oct 2004 Country:	28-10-2009, 15:11 I haven't analyzed all the rates on the web site referred to above but I will say this....if you go to ebay, you will find two very similar products, one offered for $9 with $3 shipping (although this is to the USA, I don't know how much it is to ship to other places) and $20 (also with $3 shipping)...you can read up about the subtle differences....

	(#5)
RoadRunnerUS (Offline) Junior Member Newbie Posts: 8 Join Date: 27 Oct 2009 Country:	29-10-2009, 05:56 Thank you guys for the quick answer. Matha531, I am not sure I understand your answer. It is not only buying the card, but also to have a worldwide network to use it. Can you be more specific on the cards you mentioned. Are they coming also with call plans? General question by a newbie... What are all these networks mentioned at the bottom of the message of Effendi and PhotoJim? It look to me like an advertising, which I am sure it is not!

	(#8)
bbob (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Expert Posts: 499 Join Date: 20 Feb 2007 Country:	29-10-2009, 13:45 Read the small print, I always hate this but many things are hidden in these terms these days. All incoming calls to the USA number are subject to an additional $0.30 per minute surcharge The is also a $21 fee to be paid each year to keep the sim active. Also when looking at the mainpage it says you wil get both a uk and us number but nowhere does it say that receiving calls on the US will cost you extra. Only when looking at the rates there is a * mark saying you will pay extra. I really don't like this kind of marketing as many people don't check the rates or forget to see the * saying it will cost more. Just buy the ekit sim on ebay, no yealry fee, good support, good backend where you can clearly see what the costs are.

	(#9)
RoadRunnerUS (Offline) Junior Member Newbie Posts: 8 Join Date: 27 Oct 2009 Country:	30-10-2009, 00:16 OK guys, thanks to your help I was able to get the right ad for e-kit on e-bay. I think their rates are outrageous, and I wonder how come bbob was not paying attention to it. The initial kit is cheap indeed, only $9, but they are going to eat you alive on air time and connection fees. Let’s see a 10 minutes call on e-kit from UK to a mobile number in France, or any other country in Europe. After all, we are buying the phone to travel overseas, aren’t we? So 10 minutes at $0.84, will cost me $8.40. Now let’s read the fine lines… On each call send or received they are charging me additional $0.35 connection fee, and hey, lets not forget the $0.19 surcharge per minute on a call on your US number. So this little call ended up to be $8.75 if you used the +44 number and $10.65 if you used your US number (why would I do that?). Same call on SimCardGlobal.com Cheap International dual SIM cards and global roaming, will cost you only $5.20 or 40% less! The difference in the initial pricing is going to evaporate in a week. A10 minutes incoming call received in Russia will cost $18.75 on e-kit and ZERO on SimCardGlobal. Who is buying this crap from e-kit? e-kit are charging 10 cents on each SMS received, which no other company in the business is doing. And as I mentioned, they are charging 19 cents per minute on any call received on the US number. And how about e-kit airtime credit expires after 30 days while most the others never expires their credit! I checked other sites like MobilityPass local and International roaming Internet Access provider, WiFi hotspot, 3G, Toll Free, Dial-up, Broadband, wireless and mobile internet. or OneSimCard - Prepaid International SIM Card and World Cell Phones, and they are all beating e-kit to death. Mobilitypass, according to another post I saw here, require you to always have at least $25 airtime credit on your account, and in a month you made calls under $5, they charge you $5 anyhow… pretty dirty tricks. I didn’t saw this with SimCardGlobal, and I think their rates are very competitive. Bottom line – buy e-kit and you are doing the mistake of your life. You get it cheap to begin with, but you ended up paying more, much more, much, much more. Last edited by RoadRunnerUS; 30-10-2009 at 00:24..

	(#10)
MATHA531 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Specialist Posts: 869 Join Date: 15 Oct 2004 Country:	30-10-2009, 00:53 Roadrunner... It depends on a lot of factors and depends on your use. To characterize e-kit as a mistake might not be true in all cases but nobody said for all people it is the best. For me, my travelling is in Western, Central and parts of Eastern Europe. I go to Scandanavia, it's perfect for me...I don't call many European mobiles if any...I might make a call or two to a local restaurant. If I'm going to be in a burgh for a while, I might go for a local sim. My chief use of the card is to receive calls as economically as possible. I can always ask somebody who I call to call me back. I use my regular t mobile USA phone for text messaging...on my plan it's free to receive text messages I believe all over the world...it costs me only 35¢ to send a text message...also I have local British sims and their rates outside of Britain are not any better than e-kit....there are a few other Isle of Man international cards and at least on this forum we have discovered they all have fair usage policies (that means if you only use the cards to receive calls and make too few outgoing calls, they cut you off), annual fees and other goodies in the fine print. Now, your needs may be different than mine. For exame, I still have an Air Baltic card which uses Estonian originating numbers...its rate in Russia is very reasonable but it has high rates to and from Estonia whereas e-kit treats Estonia as zone 1...free incoming via the +44 and 19¢ incoming via +1...you figure out why.... Unfortunately the international sim card business has been very unstable recently. Until the last year, we had O9 in Iceland, United Mobile in both Liechtenstein and the isle of Jersey and they had better rates than e-kit. But agin for everybody, it's the way they use the phone that is the determining factor and believe me I don't espouse getting 5 or 6 different sim cards for international travel but as long as I am reachable, if I call home I can always ask the person I call to call me right back and they have no problems calling me on the +1 number.