jazzys

Hi, i am going to england at xmas and wondered what my best option was regarding my mobile phone. Its actually a phone i brought from england and its not locked at all.

If i leave my oz vodafone sim in it will it cost me any different sending texts when i'm in UK than it would if i was sending them from Oz?

ie, UK to UK compared to Oz to UK

Jazzys

sonlymewalter

Are the terms and conditions on a website for you to check out? All phone companies have different rules and even these change pending on when you took out the contract so it's difficult to tell without knowing your contract details.

Failing their website giving details, why not call your moby company and ask their customer services people? They will know......

Enjoy Xmas in UK. Bring us some Brannigans beef and mustard chrisps willl ya....

jazzys

sorry guys, forgot to mention its not a contract phone. Just vodafone PAYG

Jazzys

sonlymewalter

Take a look at their website mate, there's got to be something on there

Edit: Take a look here mate http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatc...ageID=PTC_0092

al150n

When we flew to Perth last year we both took our 3 phones with us & found that we could use our inclusive minutes & texts out there as we could still use the 3 network. I've got a feeling they've stopped that option now though but might be worth seeing if vodafone do anything similar. They have been doing holiday deals here so you can text & phone the same as you do at home but I believe that ends fairly soon. I'm sure it was vodafone I was looking at the other day (we're changing providers at the mo) & they had an overseas usage option.

For our trips to Cyprus we found the cheapest way to go was to buy a pay as you go sim card there as it works out cheaper to phone home, receive calls & text.

Alison x

jazzys

I'll do some digging, just thought someone here may know already.

Cheers
Jazzys

katsmajic

my mums back in the uk atm - uses her oz sim to text me, says her credit is going down at normal rate, she has a uk phone too to text uk folks when shes here.

Beachband

If you are back in the UK, using the Oz sim to send a text etc to Oz, you are charged a bit extra, as your OZ sim is connected to UK network, an extra fee is charged, around 27pc a text as opposed to what it usually is, not much difference though than if you were texting Oz from the UK anyway with a UK sim.

NigelWaring

I have an Oz phone which is not locked into any company. I took it to UK and purchased a local PAYG Sim, it worked perfectly. I bought a Sim then made a prepayment, they gave me a credit card size thing that I took into Tesco, paid some money and moments later received an SMS confirming the amount. Later I found that some firms in UK have free sims and their call rates seem to be the same, some even give you a bit of free credit.

quoll

I'd go for the local payg sim too - better value all round.

Kooky.

Ok I'm not quite awake yet as my coffee's still too hot to drink but in case anybody hasn't mentioned/linked to info on this -

You need to get international roaming enabled, but also you need to check that the pre-pay voucher you have is eligible for use overseas. Good luck with that.

I had all sorts of bother when I tried to to this in June, going to Europe. One day Vodafone might get outlet staff that knows what it's doing...anyway I got roaming enabled and bought a $29 voucher, as usual. I didn't think to check it would work but as I was getting roaming enabled, I would have thought the salesperson might have put two and two together and told me if it wouldn't. Silly me. I went back in a week later to buy another voucher just in case I ran out, checked if it was possible to top-up remotely using the usually 4 digit services number and was told, yes, of course, but you won't be able to use it overseas as the $29 voucher doesn't work like that.

After dishing out a bit of good-natured grumbling/sarcasm I was sold a $30 voucher I'd never heard of, and assured it would. Bit suspicious, checked the website when I got home and could find no mention of a $30 voucher, so emailed customer services. They said it wouldn't work, need at least a $49 voucher. So back to the store next day to sort it out and convince them I was just paying the difference because I was mis-sold - which took some doing.

Was reminded the almost unused $29 voucher in my phone would not work and, as it would run out when I was there, was pretty much a waste of money. However, being from Yorkshire I don't like to waste owt so I thought I'd give it a go and it DID work, it lasted most of my trip sending a couple of texts a day.

The problem came when I needed to use the top-up voucher. Dialling the customer services number to do it by keystrokes didn't work (I had been sceptical about that) and I couldn't dial and pay as I didn't have any credit. Vodafone in Amsterdam couldn't help me; they were very nice and suggested a local SIM but I was about to move on from NL so no point.

So I spent 10 euros on a phonecard to ring my husband to get him to call Vodafone and get my bloody top-up voucher enabled. Initially they said they couldn't (it was Sunday) but after some stropiness on his part, they miraculuously managed it.

So what's my advice? Well I now have a contract.

(We also have a Tesco SIM we use in the UK, had it years. Just need to re-activate it every now and then, I think.)

jazzys

Gawwwwwwd, i think i'll leave my phone at home in Oz

Jazzys

sonlymewalter

I was thinking the same

Maybe take two empty bean tins and a piece of string

Beachband

lets make all this simple! . . . If you have a PAYG(I don't know about bill phones) you go from Oz to UK, if you are using your Oz sim in your phone in the UK,which has an Oz dial code(0061). Your phone will connect to e.g Vodafone, 02 etc(your phone connects to these service providers automatically to which ever part of the UK your in.

So this means your are charged a small fee by the service provider for using their network to call or send a text back to Oz(it knows your sim has an OZ dial code) or for that matter someone in the UK. Both costs within the UK or back to OZ will be exactly the same.

So you send a text for example in the UK with the setup I mentioned above, the text goes through 2 servers(UK + Oz) and lands into the receiving phone.

So ideally it is cheaper to use a UK PAYG sim when you get to the UK.
But if you dont, the charge is about 8pc more per call transaction.

This example is vice versa - Uk sim in Oz

aasmith1957

I wouldn't use international roaming it cost a fortune.I was going to use it 2 years ago when we went back on holiday.We just got a sim card through orange that time and topped it up once.Last year just got a sim from tesco and put that in, left australian one at home.I think i put 30 pounds of credit on it,lasted us 6 weeks.Phoned my daughter twice here on the landline and other daughter twice on her mobile for quite a while.Ended up with 19 pence in credit the day we flew home.