our phone contracts are due for renewal this month, we have cancelled them and gone onto pay as you go (very expensive!!!) we there wondering if it would be better for us to go onto vodafone contracts they seem to be quite big in oz, or is it going to be cheaper to get contracts when we get there (hopefully before christmas!). any ideas??

Vodaphone/Orange in the UK and Oz are totally different companies/systems. Your sim card/contract won't work unless the system has an auto roam facility and then it becomes dearer to operate. Add to that the fact that Vodaphone/Optus/3/Orange etc do not have as great a coverage area as Telstra, though even Telstra won't work in some areas unless you have a CDMA or satellite phone.

ok, thank you

Our phones are O2 and both unlocked so we just bought Oz sims from http://www.0044.co.uk/australia.htm as we are going to be travelling for a few months before settling down. We also get credits for calls between the phones because we bought two. Believe it is reasonably cheap for people from the UK to call you as well.

Has anyone else used these sims?

Hi,
You could have kept your UK voda account and used vodafone passport, you pay $0.60cents? for the connection then it reverts back to your free minutes, this includes calls from oz to uk. Also, if you use a landline in Oz to Landline in UK then try www.webcalldirect.com, very good service with them and free calls to uk.

Paul