2 Week Vacation in UK
 

Heading off to the Glastonbury festival in the UK at the end of June.
We want to have a mobile phone for emergency calls only. I was thinking of picking up a cheap GSM phone off of Ebay and just picking up a Sim card when we arrive in the UK.

We wont have much time to look around when we arrive and would like to have it all lined up prior to arriving.

There are places at the festival to charge your electronics, so we should be all set for he 5 days we are there. We would need voicemail with whichever plan we choose.

My thoughts are the phone can stay shut off and we can turn it on to check messages a few times during the day. SMS may be a good idea if the cost isnt unreasonable.

So suggestions for an inexpensive phone and a SIM card/Service for the UK are appreciated.

Are there places at the airports where you can rent a phone for 2 weeks?
Would this be a better option based on my usage?

We wouldn't require use of the phone again, so after the 2 weeks in the UK whatever phone we may buy, would go back on Ebay or collect dust in my retired cell phone museum.

Well the dirt cheapest phone would probably be something you could pick up in the UK along with a sim card..they tell me there are many places that sell the required gsm phones with the 900/1800 mhz bands for as little as 15 quid although you make a point of wanting to have everything lined up before arrival and not to have too much time to waste.

Look,l here's the deal. UK competition is very very fierce and the big telcoms are literally giving away sim cards for free...you can have them posted to you at any UK address (say your first hotel) and they're extremely easy to top up (most come with no credit...a quick pop into a grocery or convenience store or a drug store will take all of about 30 seconds to top up)....dirt cheap calls available for all of them to wherever you are from (it seems the USA) with rates starting at 3p/minute. You will receive for free.

I don't know just where in the UK you will be and just where the best service is..perhaps some of our colleagues here from the UK can help you out on this. However, if you want to really be all set before arriving, you can search on ebay for a cheap gsm phone, they come in all prices depending on the bells and whistles (do you want a camera? an MP3 player? Internet?)....just make sure the phone has the 900 and 1800 mhz bands (if you truly want never to use it again but you can use it in the USA with certain carriers if you get a quad band)....as far as getting a British sim card you will find on ebay almost all the major telcoms available for about $2 + a couple of bucks for shipping, say less than $5 when all is said and done. T Mobile UK is there, Vodafone UK is there, Orange UK is there (although Orange requires a step to register, T Mobile and Vodafone will work right out of the box as soon as you top up, many Vodafone cards come with small amounts of credit so they'll work right out of the box)....you can check on their web sites for what has to be done to get cheap calls to the USA (vodafone requires you to sign up for a plan, Orange you want the camel plan), T Mobile also has a cheap plan to the USA now)...Orange and T Mobile tie in with a firm called yourcallworld and you can get calls to the USA for 3p/minute so there's really no need to keep the phone off, it's really a mobile phone haven right now. And another good thing is that since the language spoken in the UK and American are very closely alligned, you will be able to talk to people for help and even read the web sites and manuals (something I'd love to be able to do for my trip to Germany but alas alas...).

The problem is not doing it, really there are so many choices and they're all very viable.

Just as an example, here is a link that will enable you to buy a T Mobile UK sim card for $1 with $3.25 shipping to the USA

http://tinyurl.com/y5jaefv


Here's another link to get an Orange UK sim card for $4.95 + free shipping:

http://tinyurl.com/y5x7rbc

You want vodafone UK? For $5.95 (free shipping)

http://tinyurl.com/y442sdb

Really can't do better than that unless you want to wait till you arrive in the UK where they can be had for free...but you won't know your number in advance if that's important to you.

Thanks so much for the very detailed reply. Yes i am from the US and we plan on flying into Bristol international airport. We will be in Bristol overnight and then catching a bus to the festival. At the festival for 5 days and then back to Bristol to pick up a rent a car and then off for another 4-5 days of sightseeing.

It sounds like picking up a phone off of Ebay and a SIM card with one of the carriers you mention would be the way to go.
Id love to check my email, but it isnt critical that i do. Texting and voicemail are musts.
Any suggestions on a cheap dual band phone or maybe even Quad Band for use back home?
I take it i would need to get a charger adapter for use in the UK? Im sure there are plenty of those on Ebay as well.

No problem with the charger...they're almost all dual voltage now anyway today. You will need an adapter plug for the UK...readilly available almost everywhere (on ebay too...UK plugs are very large with 3 pins sort of...two horizontal and one vertical on top...

All the PAYG have voicemail, some free some cost a few pence....some have data plans that enable you to check some e mail easily enough although that's never been much of a problem for me what with internet cafes and now I bring my notebook...I will say this, however, that while in the USA almost every cheap hotel room has free wife, it's not so common in the UK...I hope into Mickey D or Starbucks for that...

Most UK networks offer dirt cheap pre pay mobiles (with charger etc...all in) prices start from like £20 to thirty quid...

Also try branches of Carphone warehouse they are found all over the place. bonus there is that many of there phones are unlocked.....

Also it is worth noting that o2 give out free SIM cards to many international arriving passengers these days. I got one the other day when arriving at Gatwick. It was the shortest time I have held onto a SIM as I managed to pass it on to somebody who was asking at the Newsagent on how to buy one a few minutes later! ;)

For buying a handset, there's also a famous UK shop called Argos who are actually a catalog retailer. They have stores in several town centers. They always have really ridiculous offers on cheap phones. I just had a look and they have them starting at GBP4.99 at the moment:
Cheapest Mobile phones at Argos

yeah...but sometimes they are always out of what ya want!

We will have very little time to get a phone when we arrive. Being that Bristol appears to be a decent sized city, i would imagine i should be able to email one of the carriers and arrange to pick up a phone on a specific date and possibly even get a number from them before we arrive.

So much to plan in a short amount of time. Sounds like there are many different ways to go about this. Just slightly overwhelmed, but im sure itll all work out.

Do yourself a favor...I just did a quick ebay search and saw oodles of listings for phones (new ones at that) quad bands unlockedfor less than $50...choose any one you want (saw what seems a nice Sony Ericsson for $30, saw a Motorola for
$20)....if you want to then go to any of the web sites and have free sim cards delivered to your first hotel, that's easy enough or just order one of the sim cards I suggested...fort less than $30 you'll be all set and simply have to top up (a very very simple matter and indeed can be done at the airport upon arrival...just don't see why you would want to start up and have a phone waiting (if you order from one of the carriers, it will probably be locked anyway).....at these prices, how can you go wrong?

Crikey. You can pick up a brand new phone within a few minutes for very little money, possibly at the airport, or otherwise just about anywhere else. Britain is about the most competitive telecoms market anywhere, and there are phone shops on nearly every corner (note that #1 Carphone Warehouse does not actually sell car phones anymore, but the old name has stuck). You can't e-mail ahead and request a number (and there'd be no reason to - once you've got the phone, just call home and tell them what your number is).

If you get a Vodafone SIM, you can call the US for 5p a minute, and there are other cheap deals available - see PrePaidGSM: United Kingdom. (And if you do decide to get a nice phone rather than a 5 pound throwaway, do get one that's quad band, so you can use it in the USA.) You can even keep your UK SIM active so you can use it on future visits, even years later, by occasionally doing something with it like sending a text message every six months.

Matha thanks for the push, i think ill grab one of the Motorola V195 or V197 phones and decide on which one of the cards from Ebay that you suggested would work best.

Is there a difference in reliability/coverage between Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile? Or are they all about the same?

I should have known better than to post late last night after going out shopping for Tents, Backpacks, Sleeping Bags etc.

Probably not a big difference but I'm not familiar with the areas of England you will be in...certainly in the cities there shouldn't be much of a difference; that is where, as I said in my first response, we could use some help from our British colleagues here. From what I've heard and read previously, T Mobile is probably slightly behind tyhe others in coverage...you probably can't go wrong with either Vodafone or Orange; Orange sim cards require registration, not a big deal and can be done online before they assign you a number...so putting that all together leaves us probably with vodafone. As noted, you can get a plan with them with calls to the USA at 5p/minute....you have to do a little bit of homework and read up on their web site the text message you have to send to sign up for that plan but none of this should be a deal killer!

Motel75,
Thanks for the link to the UK Prepaid page. I did check them out and i didnt see 5p for calling the US with Vodafone. It was £ 0.99 for landline and € 1.21 for cell.
T-Mobile was 10p pr/minute to both Landlines and Cell.
Orange is £ 0.20 - € 0.24

Ill have to look into it more to see what their packages include. The link to the prepaid T-Mobile card that was posted earlier T-Mobile UK Prepaid PAYG SIM Card w/FREE ROAMING & MORE - eBay (item 150425602949 end time May-19-10 14:17:41 PDT)
mentions that you can receive calls within the UK for free, and can receive text for free ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD including the US!

T-Mobile seems like the way to go and their coverage map appears the same as Orange and Vodafone.

Hopefully a few more hours of research and the info i have gotten from the people here, will help with the decision.

If you want to call home a lot....try one of the mvno's like Lebara, Nomi, Lyca, Vectone i have some spare sims of each of these if you want...will swap 1 for 1...there numbers are already supplied on the sim

You have to sign up for vodafone international to get 5p/minute to the USA. See International Calling - Vodafone

Lebarra as suggested above is 4p/minute to the USA

T Mobile UK can be 3p/minute to the USA but you have an extra step to call a firm called yourcall world (see www.yourcallworld.com)......

Orange camel plan is 6p/minute to the USA but as above you can use yourcallworld to make it 3p/minute......

T Mobile UK straight up has a plan you can sign up for 5p/minute to the USA

nomi its 6p and 11p for texts International Mobile Rates | Cheap Phone Rates

lyca its Lycamobile Plus Tariffs
4p and 4p

vectone its 3p with texts at 10p Tariffs - How much do international calls on Vectone cost?

I'm still hoping vodafone will go mad again this summer and offer free roaming throughout Europe like they did last summer...did they make money on that or did they lose their shirts? Oh well, a fellow can hope, eh.

Also to add to those international rates from UK SIM's, Three UK now have some impressive tariffs from their prepaid SIMs. You need to just dial a short 3 digit prefix before dialing the international number. USA and Canada is just 3p/min.
See: 3 - Pay As You Go - International calling rates

Good question. After all, they still make some termination money on their UK network on incoming calls, and having it free just encourages people who would not normally be using the phone to keep using them just like it home. In most of Europe, their own networks will ensure that they do not pay any further inter-operator terminations.

Malkav,
Whose network are Lebara, Nomi, Lyca, and Vectone on?
Would there be a prefix that i would have to enter prior to making calls if i went the MVNO route?
If i can do Vodafone for 5p to the USA, then i might forgo the middleman stuff and deal direct with Vodafone. For the amount that we would use the phone, im thinking the simpler we keep it the better.

So with that said. I looked at Vodafones website and came up with the following.
On the Vodafone Simply Pay as you go plan, calls cost 20p a minute and texts are 10p - to anyone, any time, anywhere in the UK.
They then mention that i would need to add the International Pay as you go perk by either calling 36888 from my mobile or text INTERNATIONAL to 2345.
They also offer a free SIM, but it appears it might only be for people from the UK or people with an existing number.

I see this happening in the following sequence.
1. Order the Motorola V197 and UK charger from Ebay.
2. Order the Vodafone SIM from Ebay (or possibly get a free one from Vodafone)
3. Upon arrival in the UK, top up my SIM at a yet to be determined location in Bristol. (airport should have a place im assuming?)
4. Once topped up, i can text INTERNATIONAL from my phone to get the 5p rate for calls to the US. (or is there a better way to do this?)

I couldnt find out what the cost would be for texts sent to the US, or what the rate would be for incoming calls or texts from the US.

Incoming texts will be free...I think, but am not sure, outgoing texts while in the UK are 35p at most (although they might be less)...the vodafone sim card comes I believe with £1 of credit, enough to make the text message international to activate vodafone international with the low cost to the USA (I'm sure the price for texting to the USA is somewhere on the web site)....the vodafone sim card comes with a card the size of a credit card for topping up...pop into most any convenience store, drug store (boots, superdrug), grocery store (tesco, sainsbury), present the card and state boldly in your best American accent, "Please top up for 10 pounds (or whatever you wish, you can do as little as 5 pounds)"...the cashier runs the card through his terminal, you pluck down the 10 quid (or in many of the places whip out your US credit card which will work even though it doesn't have a chip and pin setup) and voila, done finished, topped up. Nothing could be simpler! (Without the swipe card, it's a tad more complicated, the cashier gives you a receipt with instructions and a 16 digit number, you follow the directions, enter the 16 digit number and you've topped up!)....the motorola probably comes with a dual voltage charger...all you will need is an adapter plug not a converter but check to see that it says input 110-240 volts; almost all do today but the motorola model has been around for a little while, not that that has anything to do with its ability to serve as a phone......

BTW they will post a free sim card to any UK address including your hotel but as you said you want to be all set up and if you wait you won't know your number in advance...it's probably worth the $5 or whatever it is just ot be able to tell people your number (it will be a UK cell phone number starting with 07,,,in giving people your number, they might not understand the system, tell them they will have to dial 011 44 7... omitting the lead zero...for you to call back to the USA on the phone you use the + key...on gsm phones the + serves in place of the international prefix so you would dial +1 212 555 1212 to call the number 1 212 555 1212 in the USA...you can call toll free numbers (800,866,877...) the same way but before the call is completed you will hear a pleasant enough female voice reminding you, "the number you have dialed is not toll free if called from outside the United States. If answered, you will be billed at international direct dial rates. If you do not wish to be charged, please hang up now." (I hate that announcement) but for 5p, it's no big deal. Incidentally, on many of these plans, you are charged by the second not rounded up to the next highest minute...don't know if this applies to the vodafone international plan ...I think that's it....your problem has been solverd expediteously eh.

Ah ha, found it for you...24p per text message to the USA, free to receive!

U da man Matha531
Wait till they get a hold of my Boston accent!
Should i be reading something more into the "present the card and state boldly in your best American accent" comment?

It was meant as a joke....don't take any of my wisecracks as anything other than my feeble efforts at humor.

Late model Motos can all be charged up via USB, though you will probably have to install the driver on your computer to do it this way. Their chargers are alwys universal voltage, only a plug adapter is needed (and some Moto chargers include a UK three-pin plug and a Europlug as standard).

Incoming text is always free in Europe, no matter who the operator is. It's bizarre indeed that it costs something in the US, but I suppose the thinking was that if people were used for paying for incoming calls, they wouldn't fuss about incoming text either.

Don't let me stop you from ordering a V197/RAZR/whatever and SIM via eBay, etc., but it really is no trouble at all to locate a Vodafone shop or equivalent mobile phone store in Britain and you can have the phone paid for and working in 10 minutes. (It might be easier to do it this way if you don't feel like setting up your mobile browser, or if the browser settings on your phone are locked, because it will come preconfigured - UK networks have cheap data too, and at the festival you might find this an easy way to check the news, your e-mail, etc. - however, you can usually have the provider text the browser/MMS settings sent to you - if it doesn't do this automatically, just look at the website.)

Agreed with one small exception noted. If you buy the phone from a vodafone store, chances are it will be locked. And yes, of course, phone can be unlocked yada yada yada. And I think we can agree, the difference in money is negligible so it comes down to what the OP feels is most convenient.

UK only chargest for outgoing text messages....(except certain shot code premium rate numbers...tv quizes etc)

Incoming calls are free for you too, but your US-based caller will pay 20-40 cents a minute to call a UK mobile number. The UK is on the caller-pays model.

There is a way to make this somewhat cheaper....a firm called localphone is offering direct dial numbers with just about any US and I believe Canadian area code your heart might desirte...they only charge $3 for the number and 99¢/month to maintain the number...,you can set the forwarding number via the web...cost to a UK mobke 12.3 cents US/minuite (to you of course), the caller pays whatever his or her ld or local carrier charges to the local number...seems to be a pretty good deal...use it myself for call forwarding......