Mobile phone service

[garyandkris 0]

Well, Gary will be flying over Monday; they delivered his visa on Thursday, three days after his interview. In the rush to get everything prepared and sorted before he gets here, I realized that I completely forgot about his mobile service.

We have Vonage for long distance, but Gary wants to be able to text his friends and family in the UK and call them from his cell occasionally. I'm mobile phone averse, so all the different options give me a headache. It seems like all the plans out there offer a ludicrous number of free minutes, which he doesn't need. I was wondering if anyone's had a good experience calling/texting the UK with certain providers. Or would he be better off with a pay-as-you-go plan? We'd be looking at about 200 texts and maybe 3 to 4 hours of calls per month to the UK.

Thanks.

[Fandango 1,439]

Sprint's texts used to be all inclusive no matter where you sent it, but they changed that & I didn't notice that the new rate to tet D was .20 a text. Or maybe it's .15 Anyways, that does rack up (

Shame no one in the UK has vonage...D has Von and he's got a virtual number which is in my area code. So calling him costs me nowt. The cool thing is, you can access the acct online & change the forwarding options...so essentially, you can call any landline in the UK for free so long as you put the number on the call divert. A bit of a PITA, but the thing is that most cellies have wireless internet, so even if he is out and wants to call his fam/friends, he could jump on the net, change the call divert..and voila!

Conversely, you could just use your vonage and get a virtual number for the UK, and if he wants to use his mobby, then he can text and say 'hey call me'....all you have to do is divert the vonage to the cellphone.

[TracyTN 237]

I have Verizon, and Chas doesn't always get my texts. Its very spotty.

We've found that if I had Cingular or T-Mobile, my phone would work when in the UK (mainly cos Verizon doesn't use sim cards). So possibly they would be more reliable to get the texts to the UK than Verizon. How much they would cost you per text, though, I dunno.

[cheeky^Wolf 0]

Another option is to use Yahoo IM. You can text a mobile from there for free and they can text you back, it just comes up as an IM.

We use a Tel3 calling card for calls to the UK $50 lasts about 6 months and is something silly like 2400 minutes of calls.

I have set our phone up as an 0845 number for friends and family in the UK - it's a lo-call number so an hour costs my mum a pound.

I have my UK mobile here too - doesn't seem as expensive to text from that to home.

[Dr_LHA 3]

For calling the UK, get a calling card and use it from the cell phone. Cell phone rates to call abroad are ridiculous. I have AT&T for my mobile (yes, I still have an original AT&T contract, and they seem to be called AT&T again now) and they charge 25 cents for text messages to the UK. Also Cingular/AT&T always seem to work best at texting abroad, I never had much luck with Verizon. That and Cingular has GSM phones with SIM cards, so your husband will be able to transfer the stuff from his old Euro phone, or maybe even use his old phone in the USA if he goes with AT&T (or T-Mobile for that matter).

Alternatively you can link Skype to your mobile phone and send much cheaper texts from within Skype. The returning texts come back to your phone. That said, I'm guessing your fiance doesn't want to text from a computer!

[garyandkris 0]

Thanks for the input, all. I think I'm more confused now than before.

He's currently with T-Mobile UK through June. I thought he might just want to switch to US service with them, but they seem to charge more for texts to the UK than anyone, 35 cents per outgoing text. It would be a bonus, though, if he could use his current phone and SIM card. I'm assuming they won't make him buy a new phone, as he bought one through them last year that he's grown quite attached to.

I think we'll try sticking with T-Mobile for a bit on a pay-as-you-go plan and then switch if he's not getting his money's worth. I'll also try to get him to text through an IM whenever there's a computer near at hand. I'll have to rig his mobile to give off a tiny electric shock if there's a computer withing a twenty yard radius.

[Dr_LHA 3]

It really depends on the phone as to whether he can keep it over here. Some UK phones simply won't work in the USA at all.

[no name 1]

It really depends on the phone as to whether he can keep it over here. Some UK phones simply won't work in the USA at all.

Verizon won't work with any UK phone, let alone be a provider. Verizon tewts are .25 to the UK.

[Dr_LHA 3]

It really depends on the phone as to whether he can keep it over here. Some UK phones simply won't work in the USA at all.

Verizon won't work with any UK phone, let alone be a provider. Verizon tewts are .25 to the UK.

Yeah, they use a different technology than GSM, along with Sprint. Also if you have Nextel you can't use your UK phone. I guess I should have been more specific, if you want to bring a UK phone and use it on a US provider, it needs to be at least a Tri-band phone and also you need to sign up with a GSM provider, which basically means T-Mobile or Cingular/AT&T, plus some other smaller ones.

[Dan&Tiffany 0]

Just a bit more on the Cingular international plan: For $3.99 a month you can call UK landlines for $0.06 a minute and UK mobiles for $0.25. And as mentioned texts are $0.25.

[Widge 0]

Having tried many calling cards to the UK from US over the last several years I have been using http://www.idphonecard.com for the last 18 months and cannot recommend them highly enough, though not the cheapest at 3.5C a minute there are NO hidden charges whatsoever (call connection, monthly maint blah blah) that some cards have so what you pay for is calls and calls alone. Never had a bad connection, and it even has a free try out,

Texting I use Cellular One mobile and texts to the UK are included in my free texts always get thru no problem.

[Dr_LHA 3]

These guys are a better deal IMHO:

https://www.onesuite.com/default.asp

2.2cents a minute to the UK and no connection fees, you pay up front online. I used them for a year before I moved to using Skype.

[garyandkris 0]

Hmm. Cingular is beginning to look like the best deal as far as a cellular plan goes. I'm not sure what sort of phone he has, exactly, but I think it's some version of a RAZR or KRZR. I'm horrible at recalling brand names or specific product names. I'll let him have a go at reading this thread and sorting out which provider he wants to use after he arrives.

I'm sticking with Vonage for digital land line service for now. There are rumors they'll be either going out of business or be bought out in the near future, though. I'm hoping they'll hold out until our likely move this fall, and then we'll switch to Skype or Onesuite or someone else.

I can't believe he's going to be here in less than 24 hours. And here I am reading the fine print on phone service sites instead of dancing crazily around the house with joy. Well, I still have about an hour before bedtime--maybe I'll do that now.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Have you considered "other" services?

Reliance Communications (www.relianceindiacall.com) does offer services to UK (different TF number than to India).

[midicat 0]

I know with Sprint you can pay a monthly fee and call cheaper to the UK as well. Txt's are .15 each, but I believe they have plans that you can get where you pay so much for a certain amount of txt's a month? When I called them up to ask how much international txt's were they tried to sell me on this 300 txt a month plan that you can add onto your bill.

I am definately getting vonage when my fiance moves here so that we can get a local access number for parents to call us, and we will be able to call them as much as we want . Hopefully we can find a cheap highspeed internet though Nothing like charging us loads here.