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MATHA531 · 24-02-2006, 10:13

My other complaint with the rip off artists at Telestial and the other one (incidentally is there such a thing as price fixing in the USA?) is you have no choice of which network you buy the sim on. You get the network in the country they are featuring on their site that week (or month)...

Example: I was travelling to Ireland about a year ago and was looking to pick up a local Irish sim...same business you want the number before you leave...the only Irish carrier Telestial had was Meteor which is generally acknowledge to be the weakest of the Irish networks...I wanted either Vodafone IE or O2-IE preferring vodafone because you can use vouchers from other vodafone operations to keep thethe number active more easily (don't know if O2 UK vouchers work on O2-IE but I do know Vodafone UK vouchers work on Vodafone IE (as well as Vodafone NL, Vodafone DE, SFR, Vodafone IT etc.)....in any event I passed on the Telestial offer which was something like $50 plus shipping (don't you love when they charge you $15 for shipping when USPS charges them $4)...and decided to wait for arrival in Ireland. Sure enough there was a Vodafone IE store right in the arrivals area of the Dublin airport...10? for a sim card including 5? of service and they had a special if I registered the sim (using the hotel's address) I would get an additional 5? of call credit...somehow my math tells me that would make the sim card free...of course since I use callback world to call North America, ultimately I still had 9,25? left on the card when I left Ireland...the one year expires in April...I will be visiting the UK in April...the choice is mine to walk into a Vodafone UK store and buy a voucher to keep the account active or since I now rely more or less on United Mobile to let it expire.

My preference has always been for local sims for incoming as I find them more reliable (although I have to admit United Mobile reliability has increased tremendously over the past year and is now pretty stable).

None of this would have been possible if I had accepted the Meteor offer on Telestial. In almost all cases, their charges are 3 times the price you will pay by waiting and buying the local sim upon arrival and in this modern era of text messaging and e mail, letting your friends know your number is no big deal.

	(#10)
MATHA531 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Specialist Posts: 869 Join Date: 15 Oct 2004 Country:	24-02-2006, 10:13 My other complaint with the rip off artists at Telestial and the other one (incidentally is there such a thing as price fixing in the USA?) is you have no choice of which network you buy the sim on. You get the network in the country they are featuring on their site that week (or month)... Example: I was travelling to Ireland about a year ago and was looking to pick up a local Irish sim...same business you want the number before you leave...the only Irish carrier Telestial had was Meteor which is generally acknowledge to be the weakest of the Irish networks...I wanted either Vodafone IE or O2-IE preferring vodafone because you can use vouchers from other vodafone operations to keep thethe number active more easily (don't know if O2 UK vouchers work on O2-IE but I do know Vodafone UK vouchers work on Vodafone IE (as well as Vodafone NL, Vodafone DE, SFR, Vodafone IT etc.)....in any event I passed on the Telestial offer which was something like $50 plus shipping (don't you love when they charge you $15 for shipping when USPS charges them $4)...and decided to wait for arrival in Ireland. Sure enough there was a Vodafone IE store right in the arrivals area of the Dublin airport...10? for a sim card including 5? of service and they had a special if I registered the sim (using the hotel's address) I would get an additional 5? of call credit...somehow my math tells me that would make the sim card free...of course since I use callback world to call North America, ultimately I still had 9,25? left on the card when I left Ireland...the one year expires in April...I will be visiting the UK in April...the choice is mine to walk into a Vodafone UK store and buy a voucher to keep the account active or since I now rely more or less on United Mobile to let it expire. My preference has always been for local sims for incoming as I find them more reliable (although I have to admit United Mobile reliability has increased tremendously over the past year and is now pretty stable). None of this would have been possible if I had accepted the Meteor offer on Telestial. In almost all cases, their charges are 3 times the price you will pay by waiting and buying the local sim upon arrival and in this modern era of text messaging and e mail, letting your friends know your number is no big deal.