Prepaid SIM cards
 

I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is it best
that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the airport, or should
I obtain this before I go, to get a better price? I'm a little leary of
some of these websites that sell these, I have no idea if they are
legitimate.

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

Don't know where in an airport you could get a SIM card, but when in the UK
I'd recommend looking for a MPC store in the high street.

"news.dallas.sbcglobal.net" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    > card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is it
best
    > that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the airport, or
should
    > I obtain this before I go, to get a better price? I'm a little leary of
    > some of these websites that sell these, I have no idea if they are
    > legitimate.

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

"news.dallas.sbcglobal.net" wrote in message news:...
    > I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    > card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is it best
    > that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the airport, or should
    > I obtain this before I go, to get a better price? I'm a little leary of
    > some of these websites that sell these, I have no idea if they are
    > legitimate.

Can anybody answer this for Germany/France as well ???

Thanks, CJ.

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

[email protected] (CJ) wrote in
news:[email protected]:

    > "news.dallas.sbcglobal.net" wrote in message
    > news:...
    >> I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    >> card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is
    >> it best that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the
    >> airport, or should I obtain this before I go, to get a better price?
    >> I'm a little leary of some of these websites that sell these, I have
    >> no idea if they are legitimate.
    >
    > Can anybody answer this for Germany/France as well ???

I think most of the websites are legit. These days the price difference is
not so large any more. The times when fresh SIMs were even given away for
free are over. You should also bear in mind that the mail order takes time.

Rule of thumb prices for Germany (all networks):
A fresh prepaid SIM with your own phone number, EUR 15,- EUR credit, and 12
monts initial validity costs EUR 40,- in regular shops, and somewhere
around 20 or 30 EUR in webshops or at www.ebay.de (but I see the occasional
1 EUR deal at ebay).

Having said that, there seem to be advices going round that it's a good
idea to buy a prepaid SIM for every country you wish to visit. As a general
rule this is NOT TRUE, and it's even a rather stupid idea in most cases.
Instead:

+ If you already have a roaming-enabled GSM SIM of your home country, use
that wherever you go.

+ If you do not have a GSM phone or SIM, buy a phone & SIM package when you
come to Europe in the first country you visit. Make sure it is a roaming
enabled one (not all are), and use that in all other countries you visit
along the way.

This rule of thumb is best for 90% of the cases, because a) even accounting
for the roaming charges, it is going to be cheaper than accumulated
overhead costs for all the SIMs, and b) you keep the same phone number
(possibly even your home one), and people who want to contact you will stay
in touch without having to know where you are.

The "buy new SIMs all the time" route is only advisable if and only if:
- you use your phone really really a lot
- most of the phone calls you're going to make are domestic outbound,
and/or you expect a lot of incoming calls
- you do not mind having to tell everyone your new phone number once in a
while

Regards

--
Gültig für alle Staaten und Westberlin

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

"Mike O'Sullivan" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Don't know where in an airport you could get a SIM card, but when in the
UK
    > I'd recommend looking for a MPC store in the high street.

MPC??

In the airport, if you can find an airside branch of an electrical retailer
like Dixons, you can buy a pay-as-you-go SIM card..

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

<kathomas@ wrote
    | I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    | card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is it
best
    | that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the airport, or
should
    | I obtain this before I go, to get a better price?

Wait until you get to London, and then buy on the high street rather than
paying tourist prices at the airport. Take the phone with you when you buy
so you can be sure the card will work.

Owain

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

I was just in Barcelona a few week ago and was able to get a local SIM card
for 18 Euros, NO activation charges. In other words, I did get 18 Euros
credit for calls, which cost about 59 eurocents/minute peak and 29, off
peak, if I remember correctly. Recharging, which I didn't need, would have
been easy. You can either do it online using a CC card by dialing 134 I
believe, or buying a Vodaphone recharge card from most newstands. I also
thought about buying one on the internet before going to Barcelona but I'm
glad I didn't because they all seemed very expensive with very high
minimums. I DID NOT try the Vodaphone website.

"news.dallas.sbcglobal.net" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    > card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is it
best
    > that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the airport, or
should
    > I obtain this before I go, to get a better price? I'm a little leary of
    > some of these websites that sell these, I have no idea if they are
    > legitimate.

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

"news.dallas.sbcglobal.net" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    > card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is it
best
    > that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the airport, or
should
    > I obtain this before I go, to get a better price? I'm a little leary of
    > some of these websites that sell these, I have no idea if they are
    > legitimate.
Perhaps the easiest for you is to drop in at any Virgin store and get a
Virgin Mobile Connection Pack for £10, with £5 call credit. Unlike other
operators you don't have to register to use it and call charges are pretty
good: UK landline 15p/min first 5 min and 5p thereafter. Nothing to receive
calls. You can recharge at just about any newsagent, convenience store,
petrol station, supermarket etc. It operates on 1800MHz, so make sure your
phone is tri-band.

Alec

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

I discovered this discusson on buying SIM cards while in London. Some make
the same recommendation that you do, while others swear by Orange. Yet
others advocate "Fresh" via Carphone Warehoue. Just to get a different
perspective, visit
http://www.howardforums.com/showthre...76d4e94dce914a
e&threadid=84091


"Alec" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > "news.dallas.sbcglobal.net" wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    > > I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    > > card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is it
    > best
    > > that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the airport, or
    > should
    > > I obtain this before I go, to get a better price? I'm a little leary
of
    > > some of these websites that sell these, I have no idea if they are
    > > legitimate.
    > >
    > >
    > Perhaps the easiest for you is to drop in at any Virgin store and get a
    > Virgin Mobile Connection Pack for £10, with £5 call credit. Unlike other
    > operators you don't have to register to use it and call charges are pretty
    > good: UK landline 15p/min first 5 min and 5p thereafter. Nothing to
receive
    > calls. You can recharge at just about any newsagent, convenience store,
    > petrol station, supermarket etc. It operates on 1800MHz, so make sure your
    > phone is tri-band.
    > Alec

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

news dallas sbcglobal net writes:

    > I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    > card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is it best
    > that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the airport, or should
    > I obtain this before I go, to get a better price? I'm a little leary of
    > some of these websites that sell these, I have no idea if they are
    > legitimate.


The best source I've found for this information is
http://www.prepaidgsm.tk/

My husband and I will shortly make a trip to England. We plan to use
Virgin Mobile based on the information from the above website.

--Helen

Re: Prepaid SIM cards
 

I'm not so sure about that. Roaming can get VERY expensive.
Suppose for example you bought a prepaid O2 package in Germany
and wanted to use it in the UK. You would pay ?1,79/min for calls
to the UK and ?0,99/min to be called by anyone. I think Virgin
costs 15p/min max by contrast. So the 5 pounds the sim costs
(10 pounds minus 5 pounds credit) is in my book only about
5 minutes of telephoning. Add to that the fact that your initial
credit on the O2 phone would be gone pretty fast and getting
a top-up in the UK would not be so simple. Sure, the reachability
is an issue but if you are just driving around and using your mobile
e.g. to book hotels ahead I think a local sim would be a good
investment, at least in the UK and Germany.
David


"Wolfgang Schwanke" schrieb im
Newsbeitrag news:[email protected]...
    > [email protected] (CJ) wrote in
    > news:[email protected]:
    > > "news.dallas.sbcglobal.net" wrote in message
    > > news:...
    > >> I will be traveling to London in early April and need to obtain a SIM
    > >> card/chip for a GSM phone I will be borrowing to take with me. Is
    > >> it best that I wait until I'm there, and buy one of these in the
    > >> airport, or should I obtain this before I go, to get a better price?
    > >> I'm a little leary of some of these websites that sell these, I have
    > >> no idea if they are legitimate.
    > >
    > > Can anybody answer this for Germany/France as well ???
    > I think most of the websites are legit. These days the price difference is
    > not so large any more. The times when fresh SIMs were even given away for
    > free are over. You should also bear in mind that the mail order takes
time.
    > Rule of thumb prices for Germany (all networks):
    > A fresh prepaid SIM with your own phone number, EUR 15,- EUR credit, and
12
    > monts initial validity costs EUR 40,- in regular shops, and somewhere
    > around 20 or 30 EUR in webshops or at www.ebay.de (but I see the
occasional
    > 1 EUR deal at ebay).
    > Having said that, there seem to be advices going round that it's a good
    > idea to buy a prepaid SIM for every country you wish to visit. As a
general
    > rule this is NOT TRUE, and it's even a rather stupid idea in most cases.
    > Instead:
    > + If you already have a roaming-enabled GSM SIM of your home country, use
    > that wherever you go.
    > + If you do not have a GSM phone or SIM, buy a phone & SIM package when
you
    > come to Europe in the first country you visit. Make sure it is a roaming
    > enabled one (not all are), and use that in all other countries you visit
    > along the way.
    > This rule of thumb is best for 90% of the cases, because a) even
accounting
    > for the roaming charges, it is going to be cheaper than accumulated
    > overhead costs for all the SIMs, and b) you keep the same phone number
    > (possibly even your home one), and people who want to contact you will
stay
    > in touch without having to know where you are.
    > The "buy new SIMs all the time" route is only advisable if and only if:
    > - you use your phone really really a lot
    > - most of the phone calls you're going to make are domestic outbound,
    > and/or you expect a lot of incoming calls
    > - you do not mind having to tell everyone your new phone number once in a
    > while
    > Regards
    > --
    > Gültig für alle Staaten und Westberlin