Have phone, will travel
by Volker Weber
Roaming charges can be substantial when travelling in foreign countries. In Germany I would advise to buy a prepaid chip from one of the major providers (T-Mobil, Vodafone, E-Plus or O2). If you don't have a GSM phone, you can buy a (locked) phone with the chip for as little as 29 EUR. You can then buy additional airtime from most gas stations (and of course the provider shops).
I talked to Nick about whether that would be advisable in the UK as well, and he agreed. Did not know the details and warned me that coverage in the Northwest of Scotland may be spotty.
Does anyone of you know details about the mobile market in the UK? If I want to buy a card, do I need to be a UK resident? How do I buy additional airtime? What is a good deal? I would need to place national phone calls at all times during the day.
Comments
If you are travelling to the UK, do you know how you can get one of these phones in the airport or somewhere else accessible. I will be in London next week, and need a phone on short notice, so I don't have time to have a company send me one. I don't have a GSM enabled phone, so I would need the whole package.
Eine Freundin von mir hatte in London studiert und deshalb eine Prepaid-Karte von Vodaphone gekauft. Die wird jetzt im ganzen Bekanntenkreis durchgereicht, wenn jemand nach England fährt. Die funktioniert in jedem Telefon ohne Sim-Lock und Einheiten kriegst Du an jeder Ecke (Telefonläden und Elektronik-Märkte). Also alles wie bei uns. Ich weiß allerdings nichts über die Tarife, außer dass 10 Pfund schnell alle waren.
You can buy a SIM card (chip in UK) from most supermarkets or phone shops for 10-15 pounds. This is called pay as you go - SIM only, and you can recharge your pay as you go account over the phone either using a credit card, or vouchers bought in the supermarket. One of the big UK suppliers is http://www.carphonewarehouse.co.uk
Ben, http://www.mobell.co.uk/ do international phone rentals for GSM, satellite and other wacky cellular protocols. I think they might deliver to hotel.
Thanks, Andy.
I looked at O2 and found this tariff. It says "Free Internet 30 days after activation". That sounds extremely interesting. Would that cover all GPRS traffic?
Never paid much attention to the cards you can buy. But I know that Tesco offers all kind of cards. I'll try to get a brochure when I do my shopping tonight. I can then either post some details here or send it over to you, let me know.
In regards to coverage in Scotland Nick is right, it's likely to be spotty. In particular if you want to use GPRS you'll find that quite a few areas are not enabled. On the other hand you'll be surprised to find excellent reception incl GPRS in some quite remote areas.
You'll probably be OK along most major roads, if you lose the connection you might be on the wrong side of the hill. Drive back/on and you'll be OK. From what I remember Skye (where I assume you'll go) was quite good, I even managed to get reception up at the Old Man of Storr. Not great, but it worked.
As Andy says, your best bet will be to get to a big supermarket or else one of the in-town phone stores, and CarphoneWarehouses are all over. How are you travelling over here? If you let me know the details, I'll try and get you some specifics in terms of closest location (I'm in Edinburgh).
The O2 deal looks like it is just WAP over GPRS that is free, so no hooking your laptop up, from what I can see (and from a hazy memory).
The coverage up north is quite possibly patchy, but depending on where exactly you are going, you might get lucky. If I was doing what you were doing, I'd aim to pick up either an Orange and/or a Vodafone SIM, which *should* give you better coverage in the more remote areas than the other networks.
Again, as Andy said, you should be able to buy more airtime over the phone, straight on to your credit card, but there may be a catch unless you have a UK credit card. Garages, local shops, chip shops, pubs ... will likely be able to help you out with buying vouchers, though.
Are you planning to make international or just national (UK-wide) calls when you're here, as some of the pay-as-you-go deals used to be limited in that aspect?
Feel free to drop me a line for anything further. Enjoy your trip. :-)
In relation to topping up your air time - you can get these top-up cards which are registered to your pay-as-you-go phone number and you can then buy airtime at any participating shops - newsagents, supermarkets, garages etc. However you might need to get hte phone and then get them to send you the cards so it may not work with your timeframe. as Matin says for remoter areas I have always found Vodaphone / Orange to give the best coverage.
