Thoughts re telestial? Am looking for hasle free roaming SIM

[dem]

Hi all. I just started looking into SIMS as a gift for my boyfriend. He travels internationally at least twice per year and invariably makes the mistake of calling from a hotel room, resulting in huge bills. I would like to purchase an unlocked phone and SIM for him. He is not a techie and would not want to change SIMS in different countries, so I need one product tha works in multiple destinations. The Telestial Explorer and Passport products seem like they may fit the bill, but I have real reservations about doingbusiness with Telestial. To be blunt, the company seems like it might be on the shady side. Among other things, the customer service rep. with whom I initially spoke would not describe the company's return policy. Instead, he said I had to read the "terms and conditions" to get that information. When I finally found the T&C (I had to ask for the link -- it is not apparant) I saw that it contains totally conflicting information about its return policies. So now I am hesitant to plunk down over $200 for a phone/SIM combo.

Has anyone out there done business with teslestial? is it a good company? Are there other companies that offer similar products to the Explorer and Passport options? Thanks.

[Stu]

Telestial is a good company and they do provide a measure of support. They deliver on schedule and won't cheat you. Their prices are often higher than other providers and you should factor it in.

I'm presuming you are in the US based on the general feeling I got from your post. If so, another good place to buy unlocked phones is:

http://myworldphone.com/

Here is a link to another popular provider:

http://www.mobileplanet.com/

Compare the phone options there.

The explorer is an Estonian SIM. You can get good rates calling Estonia, but you can also get robbed blind. I would checkout what your rates are for calling that number. Alternatively consider getting a US phone number that can get internationally forwarded to his mobile. You can get free US phone numbers where you just pay the rate of the international forward from stanaphone.com, voicestick.com, and many others.

Competing SIMs are made by United Mobile with a Liechtenstein number and a whole series of providers from the Isle of Mann which give you a British mobile number. There is also a competitor form Iceland, but their SIMs don't have voicemail. Here is a link to a summary of the various plans:

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html

[Bossman]

Another good place to get an unlocked phone is ebay. As for the sim, you just have to compare the international sims, like Stu mentioned, and then see which one might work best for him.

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by dem

Hi all. I just started looking into SIMS as a gift for my boyfriend. He travels internationally at least twice per year and invariably makes the mistake of calling from a hotel room, resulting in huge bills. I would like to purchase an unlocked phone and SIM for him. He is not a techie and would not want to change SIMS in different countries, so I need one product tha works in multiple destinations.

I think you should answer some more specific questions before we can help you.
1) What countries does your boyfriend usually visit?
2) Does he want to make calls only, or also to receive?
3) Does he need voicemail and/or SMS messaging?

Please also notice that:
1) Some of international SIMs require internet access to recharge the account online (no auto-debiting of the credit card)
2) Some of international SIMs use euro, not US$ as their "native" currency (so the "final" pricing for a US user depends on the exchange rate and currency convertion costs applied by the credit card company)
3) If you don't buy a SIM bundled with a phone, remeber that may be some SIM/phone compatibilty issues
4) International SIMs have numbers from small European countries: Isle of Man (UK dependency with UK numbering), Estonia, Liechtenstein and Monaco. The only exception is Yackie Mobile where you can choose by yourself a US number (but of course incoming calls are not free and the company itself has suffered from "startup pains" and it's reliabilty was, ehmm, doubtful :P)

[dem]

Thanks very much for all of the replies. To answer some questions, my boyfriend travles to a different location in a different part of the world each time he takes a trip. There is no rhyme or reason to his plans. His last trip was to Austria, before that, the Amazon, before that, China. His next trip will be to New Zealand. So I basically need something with wide coverage.

Re payment, I would prefer a company that deals in dollars, just to keep things easy. I like an auto recharge feature, but having a manual recharge feature is ok too. (In fact, he may prefer that.)

Re phones, I recently made my first two eBay purchases and both were disasters (neither product was as advertised). In fact, this phone/SIM present is an alternative to my original idea, which has fallen through thanks to two rotten eBay sellers. So, regardless of how good the deal is, I am staying away from eBay.

The things that interest me the most are the reliability and helpfulness of the company, coverage of the SIM, and ease of use. These things are more important than price. (Although a good price is always a much welcomed bonus!)

Thanks again for your help. This is a very useful forum and I appreciate your taking the time to inform me.

[dem]

Two more pieces of info. to add to my prior post. He will likely use the phone to make calls, but I will undoubtedly use the phone to call him.

Most of his calls will be to and from the US. I don't think he will be a heavy user (outgoing or incoming). I am buying the phone for him primarilly as a convenience -- so that he doesn't have to hunt for phone cards and does not go broke calling from hotel phones. (Ouch!) I also think it is a nice safety feature.

Neither one of us even knows how to text message, so that isn't a big thing for us. However, having the option to do so is nice. (I plan to learn one of these days.)

Cheers.

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by dem

Thanks very much for all of the replies. To answer some questions, my boyfriend travles to a different location in a different part of the world each time he takes a trip. There is no rhyme or reason to his plans. His last trip was to Austria, before that, the Amazon, before that, China.

So far so good. If by "Amazon" you mean Brazil, United Mobile would be OK. In the above mentioned countries incoming calls are free, and calls to the USA (or to the voicemail) cost 39 eurocents per minut + 25 eurocents
first minute surcharge. The same rate are valid in most Europe and some non-European countries.
The account may be autorecharged if the balance drops 10 euro.

Originally Posted by dem

His next trip will be to New Zealand. So I basically need something with wide coverage.

Here come troubles - UM has no coverage in New Zealand.

Originally Posted by dem

Re payment, I would prefer a company that deals in dollars, just to keep things easy. I like an auto recharge feature, but having a manual recharge feature is ok too. (In fact, he may prefer that.)

United Mobile, 09 and Travelsim charge in euros.
Hop, Yackie and multiple SIMs with Isle of Man numbers charge in dollars (although there are Man SIMs charged in euros.

As to phone issues, I meant some technical requirements. All so-called international SIMs use callback technology when making calls. This means that you dial the number, the connection is broken and the service provider call you back and the "proper" connection is being established.
The crucial point in comfortable using this technologuy is that not all phones can handle callback in this way. Some of them require using fancy menus or completing the destination number with some extra codes.
Moreover, if the phone is to be used worldwide, it must support four GSM frequency bands 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (so called "quadband"). If Korea and Japan are possible your boyfriends's travel destination, please notice that there's no GSM networks there and the phone would have also support WCDDA 2100 (aka 3G/UMTS).

Originally Posted by dem

The things that interest me the most are the reliability and helpfulness of the company, coverage of the SIM, and ease of use. These things are more important than price.

You must realise that there's no SIM which works everywhere where GSM networks are . If you care about coverage then your choice should be either 09 (Icelandic number, forgot Iceland when listing international SIM "home countries" ) or Yackie Mobile.
09 covers about 170 countries and it has free incoming calls in about 110 ones. However, rates from and to some countries are pretty high and there's no coverage in Switzerland - strange but true. Yackie also covers about 170 countries. It has paid incoming calls starting from $0.19/min but it has a US number which is forwarded to the mobile phone so you can call the number and national or even local rate (if numbers in your area are available). However, there have been many problems with Yackie. Since I don't have this SIM I can't tell you if it's realiable now - maybe those who have the one will tell...

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by dem

Two more pieces of info. to add to my prior post. He will likely use the phone to make calls, but I will undoubtedly use the phone to call him.

OK. BTW, what was (roughly) average per minute rate which he paid when calling from hotels? I wonder if the example rates I have told you would mean any significant savings...

Originally Posted by dem

Most of his calls will be to and from the US. I don't think he will be a heavy user (outgoing or incoming). I am buying the phone for him primarilly as a convenience -- so that he doesn't have to hunt for phone cards and does not go broke calling from hotel phones. (Ouch!) I also think it is a nice safety feature.

As to incoming calls it doesn't matter from where they come - the only thing that matters is the country in which the phones is working.

Originally Posted by dem

Neither one of us even knows how to text message, so that isn't a big thing for us. However, having the option to do so is nice. (I plan to learn one of these days.)

Text messages are not available in 09 and Hop anyway :P. Moreover, international SMS interchange may not be very reliable. However, it's a good feature since receiving SMS with international SIM is free worldwide (the GSM phone maybe considered as a global pager). Travelsim even has a WWW gateway for SMS sending so it's free even for the sending party (however daily limits may apply).

[dem]

Thanks Przemolog -- your information is really helpful. But now I am scared. You mentioned that all SIMS operate in a callback manner. The process sounds complicated.

My boyfriend is not a guy who likes anything complicated. If he has to do anything more than dial a number and get a connection, he is likely to toss the phone off a bridge and claim he was mugged.

It sounds like this may not be a good idea for him

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by dem

Thanks Przemolog -- your information is really helpful. But now I am scared. You mentioned that all SIMS operate in a callback manner. The process sounds complicated.

My boyfriend is not a guy who likes anything complicated. If he has to do anything more than dial a number and get a connection, he is likely to toss the phone off a bridge and claim he was mugged.

It sounds like this may not be a good idea for him

If you choose a fully compatible phone, it's not any problem. In such case the only difference with "normal" dialling is that the outgoing connection is broken, and a few seconds later you just answer an incoming call and wait for establishing the connection. Special menus and/or codes are required only in case of partial phone compatibility. Unfortunately, without callback there would be no competitive prices on outgoing calls (or even making outgoing calls with prepaid-type payment mode would be impossible). Believe me that providers of international SIMs did a really good job in making SIMs easy to use as much as possible.