About to go to USA for holiday - anticipate using the phone a bit more than on previous visits to call ahead to book hotels - should I buy a SIM card over there (the phone is Tri-band).
If I do - will it mean I can't get calls from home on my usual number?
Is it the most cost effective way of making calls over there? (Peter Parry - any views?)
No real point for a short time.
If you are going to an area where Cingular has coverage then you should be in good shape anyway, other networks may or may not have roaming agreements with your UK provider.
Mobiles are generally not too bad any more, depending on your tariff.
Within the U.S. prices are no longer as high as they were
Other options are direct dial or getting someone from the UK to call you back if you call home.
Watch out for hotel phone rates which may be high. A BT calling card is another option, but probably not worth it just for a holiday.
If you are taking your mobile, make sure to contact the mobile operator and ask them to lift both international and possibly N America call barring.
I would say almost certainly yes it will be cheaper to call from a US based SIM card.
US mobile providers charge for inbound calls, but you would get that with a UK based one roaming there anyway, and a UK roaming inbound call charge is likely to be much higher.
You could divert your calls to the new number, but you will need the new number in order to do this (Maybe you could get someone else to do this once you have the number as I don't think you can do this while roaming) or you could have a voice message on your UK answerphone, giving details of the new number, including the fact you are in another time zone, so don't call me when it is 3AM my time! - This is what I did on mine when I was in New Zealand for a month.
The other way to do it is via VoIP, if you have an internet connection where you are going. (uk.telecom.voip)
I had all my landline calls routing over the internet to NZ when I was there, I could then make calls to the UK at local rates (Free with the provider I was using at the time)
Best deal we could find was for T-mobile cards on fleabay.
We used them last year in the US with no problems. Would happily do so again.
HTH
Tim
Yes.
You will still be able to get calls from home when your home SIM is in the phone. If you are lucky enough to have a phone with two SIM slots it will work fine on both numbers at the same time. Otherwise, no, obviously if your SIM is not in the phone then it will not work.
Simple answer yes it is. If you get a calling card for a cheap long distance supplier the combination of card + local SIM is the cheapest way to make international calls. It is very expensive to make calls while roaming.
FWIW I simply have several handsets. I had one left over when I upgraded to a new phone, so I use that for foreign SIMs so I can still receive work related calls on my usual phone.
Try also some global solutions like travelsim (http:// travelsimshop.com). In many countries you can call much much cheaper without buying tons of local sim cards for each country.
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