 Getting a mobile phone in England |
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| Im from Australia and about to move over to England and need some help! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 tamz888 tammy sparkes Post Count: 12 Msg: #1 178 days ago, June 3rd 2009 | Hi guys | Im about to move to England and need to know how and where to get an English sim card for my phone. Also what are the best providers and how much does everything cost? Can I use my Australian phone or will I need to buy a new one? Thanks!  Rat on the Road Kris and Kate Post Count: 432 Msg: #2 177 days ago, June 5th 2009 | Hi | Is your Aussie phone unlocked? It will need to be to use a different sim card in. You can buy sim cards for the UK all over the place. There are mobile phone shops on all town and city high streets. Look out for Carphone Warehouse, Phones4U and all the brand name shops. You can also buy them in most supermarkets. However, it's also really cheap to buy a pay as you go phone in the UK. You can get a basic one for the same price as a sim (about £10). The major companies are Vodafone, Orange and O2. Are you wanting to use your phone to phone home, or just to call within the UK? Obviously with some packages, phoning abroad is expensive, with others, it isn't. You usually don't pay for inward calls, check that this includes calls from abroad. Your best bet will be to go into a mobile phone shop when you arrive and ask them which company has the best deals, as they change regularly to get more customers. Hope this helps. Kate tamz888 tammy sparkes Post Count: 12 Msg: #3 176 days ago, June 6th 2009 | thanks. I will be bringing my own phone as it isnt locked. pre payed is my only option i think as i wont be a citizen so are the pre payed packages expenisive? (expansive calls and texts?) Ive heard they are... | Rat on the Road Kris and Kate Post Count: 432 Msg: #4 176 days ago, June 6th 2009 | Have a look at the websites for the companies I mention above. That will give you an idea of costs. I would expect that everything in the UK is going to seem expensive to you! It's a pretty expensive country generally. All the information I gave above was for pre-paid phones, known as 'pay as you go' in the UK. You can get different kinds. You can either buy top ups as your credit runs out, or you can get monthly deals where you top up a set price per month and get a certain number of texts and/or amount of call credit. Both are pre-pay.  AndrewF Andrew Furneaux Post Count: 37 Msg: #5 93 days ago, August 28th 2009 | I got a sim card with a company called lebara this is an international sim card and has good rates for calling around the world. |  pilnikjezerobota Zeibura S. Kathau Post Count: 48 Msg: #6 93 days ago, August 28th 2009 | I imagine it will be quite expensive to call and text back to Australia, if you're doing this often then go with an international simcard or just use international calling cards for these calls. You should never have to pay for incoming calls though. For local calls and texts all the companies are roughly the same, and most offer packages which give you cheaper texts/calls to people on the same network. Just compare the pay as you go and international tariffs for the various companies on their websites... the major ones are Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile. | This will sound a bit strange, but be warned that you will be relentlessly bullshitted at if you try and buy a pay-as-you-go phone in a phone shop in the UK. People who work in these shops really, really don't know when to shut up, and often won't take no for an answer when you say you're not interested in a contract. The best thing to do is to tell them you want a pay as you go phone rather than a contract because you're leaving the country in a few months - whenever I go to replace my phone I always have to say that and put on a foreign accent, otherwise they won't let me leave the shop, because that's the only valid reason why anyone would possibly not want to sell their soul to them. If you just want to buy a sim card on its own, you can usually get them in newsagents for about £3 nowadays. I think phone shops charge a bit more for just a sim card. HTH ALKIS daniel Post Count: 3 Msg: #7 54 days ago, October 6th 2009 | In the uk the best is to use the "3" company without contract . | They give a free sim card, and you get free skype calls for life even if you dont top up ! you will be able to be in contact for free with any skype member. If you will use a skype adapter like "rylwy" you will be able to use your own landline and cell phone when you are on your travel with free roaming. daniel deleted Post Count: 1 Msg: #8 48 days ago, October 12th 2009 | You must have the global travel phone card ! Its verry easy to call and i have take this card in england and vietnam. I have fund my card over this website. | RoadRunnerUS Aviva Midler Post Count: 2 Msg: #9 38 days ago, October 21st 2009 | The minus in buying the SIM card while in GB is you don't know the number that will be assigned to you, so your friends will not be able to call you. I think a better idea is to buy a global SIM card, which will serve you in UK and other countries. Some of them has no expiration at all, so it is yours for life. I know www.simcardglobal.com has a good service with cheap price, and they have a branch in Australia. You might want to consider it. | RoadRunnerUS andy0 a Post Count: 2 Msg: #10 26 days ago, November 2nd 2009 | Global roaming SIMs are interesting, but for someone in one place for a while a local SIM will be better, so the advice in the above post is a bit weak, and may well come from the firm in question | There are several UK virtual brands with cheap international rates starting from 3 pence a minute Globalcell, IDT Mobile, Lebara, Lycamobile, Mobile World, Nomi, Talkmobile, Vectone, And the main networks have reasonable int'l rates from 5p, particularly Vodafone and Orange's Camel tariff. Also, there is a callthrough provider Yourcallworld which can be used with Orange and T-mobile for from 3 pence a minute. For cheap int'l texts, look at Fishtext, which uses data to send an equivalent for a couple of pence each [Edited: 21:53 - andy0 ] andy0 a Post Count: 2 Msg: #11 26 days ago, November 3rd 2009 | to add to above: I've just learned that Yourcallworld can also be used from 3 UK | ALKIS daniel Post Count: 3 Msg: #12 25 days ago, November 4th 2009 | hi, | If you are travelling , you can also think about using a call diverter,<snip>this if installed in your home address, will divert your calls to the internet, and you can use them where ever you are, throe internet, skype phone etc. your incoming calls are 100% free and outgoing charged by your home line rate. daniel [Edited: 15:08 - Mell ] Number of Users: 8 | Number of Posts: 12 | |||||||||||||||||||||
