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trainguy77

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 13, 2003
3,567
1
My girlfriend is travelling to europe for a month. The 30 days do span between two months. She wants a cell phone for safety and in case she gets separated from the people she is travelling with. I have arranged to get a iphone 3G that is unlocked. She will be using skype to phone back to canada.

What would be the cheapest method to get minutes? She won't need a ton of minutes. I have seen some international sims, would those be cheapest? Or would it be better to get a O2 prepaid and roam with it?

She won't be needing data for the iPhone.

I have seen some people recommend http://www.telestial.com/view_product.php?PRODUCT_ID=MSIM-PP02

What are your thoughts?
 
I think it is pretty expensive, if you get a realistic calculation of how much she and you would be spending to get some talktime.

In the UK, there are some international calling cards, but you can register on the internet and call a certain number. Personally, I think Skype is the best idea as long as there is wifi. Obviously, data roaming would be outrageously expensive. How about buying a SIM card in the UK with a pay-and-go plan? There are various ones that have good deals for Europe. Try O2, but also some mobile merchants, like Carphonewarehouse and Phones4u.
 
Yeah she will use Skype for all overseas calls.

It will be for less than 20 minutes total we are guessing.
 
I spent two weeks in the US and Canada in September. My former girlfriend spent some time with me, otherwise she went to San Francisco for a few days and we covered much of the East Coast separately. Soon it turned out that it would have been cheaper to get some basic US phone and use the credit from there. Just a thought...
 
You don't say how much time your GF will be spending in each country but it might be worth simply getting a local sim card wherever she is if she needs it only to make local calls. They are generally pretty inexpensive and come with enough pre paid minutes for modest use. Another option is to get one of the international sim cards that give free receipt of calls when roaming. I have a UK one that works throughout Europe and much of the rest of the world and I'm sure you could get one with a Canadian number that you could call and she wouldn't be charged to receive the call.
 
She will be staying in some countries for as little as 3 days. Up to 7 days in others. So I don't think buying a sim card in every country will work.
 
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