Quote:
Originally Posted by MATHA531
Here's my question and I go back on this international sim thing to the days of HOP and Ryan Air which were revolutionary at the time....
I do wonder how much the eurotariffs for roaming have cut into the business of the international sim cards....if you're only going to have to pay say 0,19€ to receive calls within the eu, do you really need the international sim card.
Of course for those of us from North America, it might pay. But especially with British sim cards being so cheap (they are literally giving them away), for a three week trip through Europe from the USA, I can probably do just as well using eurotariffs using very very cheap calling cards and very cheap receiving calls.
I do wonder if this is one of the reasons for the sudden spurt in pricing.
I will say that for several years I swore by UM not at them. I remember a trip a couple of years ago throughout Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic) which finished in Germany, France and the UK. I had acquired German, French and UK sim cards but while in Eastern Europe, UM +423 functioned perfectly. And at the time, my ld carrier in the USA charged 10¢ US/minute for calls to +423 with a 1¢ (not a misprint) termination fee to a +423 mobile. I thought I was in pig's heaven using callbackworld for the outgoing.....I couldn't believe how cheap it was...
And then calls to Liechtenstein increased ridiculously so and they even added on asinine termination fees so I migrated to the +44 UM...no where near as cheap but the call forwarding to the +44 number was reasonable (not 11¢/minute but what the hell)...and I had no problems with them. Enlinea kept very cheap call back rates to the Icelandic mobile (O9) and I was paying something like 16¢/minute to call back to the USA on O9. Call quality wasn't as good but acceptable.
Now....well as the song says those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end.....
The only hope now is that the eu gets its way and eventually we get the free reception of calls with an eu sim throughout the eu!
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The problem is with countries outside EU. The cellurar providers in my country have recently increased their rates when using roaming in many countries outside. So, for these countries an international sim is still a perfect option.