Best practice international GSM setup

[ckh]

Hello all,

Thanks for all your replies!

@rfranzq: good questions. We'll take our two iphones (4S) for sure and are planning to buy an additional worldphone. Any suggestions?

And offcourse I'll report back end of 2015 ...and after my first experiences for sure!

@DRNewcomb: unfortunately you have a great point. I can solve this my using my home (VOIP) number instead which offers follow-me to multiple numbers. In this way I'm sure GV voicemail won't pick up my calls

@gkeeper: I love my family and friends. So this is why I ordered 2 xxsim.com sims (instead of onesimcard.com) this morning. The main reasons is thay they have a comparable offer, but offer an additional free US and european number! Because I'll setup my homenumber to forward to our two mobile numbers, we will be paying 17 eurocents per minute ourselves for the all calls received: 2 cpm for my voip provider, 15cpm for xxsim.com. If I get Google Voice to work this will only be 15 cpm.

Due to the issue of Google Voice, a new VOIP provider that offers SMS would be great. And an second provider for SMS; I'll give the providers mentioned a try. Who has great experiences with GT-SIM?

[MBK]

Originally Posted by gkeeper

Does anyone know of a cheaper way for the caller to call +372 numbers. All options welcome.

Yes, currently £0.06 with hotvoip.com

They allow several ways to call: hotvoip.com/ways_to_call

(Local access numbers, phone-to-phone (callback), computer, SIP, MobileVOIP application on iphone and android (direct & callback & local access numbers).

It also works beautifully with IP phones like the Gigaset C610 IP (which supports 1 analog phone line + 7 SIP providers).

You also get a SIP address you@sip.hotvoip.com , and in the windows Hotvoip desktop application settings you can setup auto incoming call forwarding to any number (i. ex: your +372). So anyone who is calling your sip address lands on your +372 and your are charged £0.06 per minute.

Possibilities are endless. For example, with callcentric.com you get a free US number. You setup all incoming calls on this US number to be forwarded to you@sip.hotvoip.com -> this lands on your +372, you pay only £0.06 per minute.

(Then if you want you can also setup callcentric to transfer the calls to your callcentric voicemail if you are not reachable on your +372 (assuming you are not using the +372 voicemail). And you can also setup callcentric to send an email to inform you of the new voicemails; so you have it send them to your 372xxxxxx@sms.onesimcard.com so you get an SMS on your +372 phone for free everytime someone leave a callcentric voicemail.)

This was just one example.

Some other cheap providers to mobile +372 from the same group of companies are: cheapbuzzer.com , megavoip.com.

[MBK]

Originally Posted by gkeeper

Only major downside is that it costs silly money for caller to call you on the free incoming +372 number, BT charge a one off £0.14 and £0.88 per minute thereafter and mobile operators charge anything between £0.50 and £1.00, which seems to defeat the object of free roaming, especially if its my family calling me, as i am picking up the callers bill . Does anyone know of a cheaper way for the caller to call +372 numbers. All options welcome.

Oh, and I forgot the other Onesimcard options:

• Your friends/family can call you for free via the Toll free 0800 access numbers. It costs you $0.20 to receive the calls, see below
• In your onesimcard.com account you can order a local UK landline number (35 countries are available). People can call you on that landline number and it costs you $0.20 to receive the calls on your +372.
• They can also call your +372 with Skype (free for them, you are charged $0.20 to receive the calls - see the onesimcard.com FAQ for how to call you for free with skype)
• OneSimCard Connect, lets people call and text you for free from their Android device! (iOS app coming soon) onesimcard.com/faq/?text=onesimcard+connect

when somebody is calling to your OneSimCard phone there is an option for them to call you through a Toll Free or local number rather than dialing your European mobile number directly, which could be expensive for them. This call will instead be charged to your OneSimCard account at an additional 20c/min to the incoming rate in the country where you are receiving the call.

Whem someone calls you through a Common Access Number they receive a prompt where they then enter your primary European number starting with 372 to reach you. For a direct connection, we recommend adding a Personal Extra Number (PEN) instead.

At this time we have Toll Free and/or Local Common Access Numbers in the following countries:

• Australia
• Austria
• Argentina
• Brazil
• Canada
• Cyprus
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hong Kong
• Israel
• Mexico
• New Zealand
• Russia
• Spain
• UK
• USA - Toll Free as well as local Common Access Numbers in New York City, Washington DC and Los Angeles

You can find these numbers in the User Guide or while logged in to your OneSimCard web account portal.

[Bossman]

A lot of operators do not even connect to those +372 numbers. And those that connect charge a hefty premium. Nevertheless, make sure you have a backup, as no one sim is guaranteed to work as stated on their website.

[fsotirop]

Originally Posted by MBK

Yes, they should lower the min recharge requirement to 10$. On the other hand, even if you don't recharge it, the onesimcard stays active for 2 years. And it still accepts incoming calls for free in 154 countries with 0 credit (many other international SIMs cut the service when credit runs out, this can be bothersome if you are in the middle of a call, on the move). Imagine yourself in trouble in an urgent situation in a foreign country. This is top notch service IMHO.

If credit expiry is an issue, Travelsim is the same thing (same backend), also active for 2 years after the last recharge, but the credit doesn't expire. The SIM itself is more expensive to purchase though, and Travelsim doesn't have free email-to-SMS.

airbalticcard (travelsim backend) does NOT expire both the credit+number for 2years of last usage (not recharge!)... onesimcard expire the credit after of just 10months of the last recharge! they also require the ridicilus amount of $25 for minimum recharge

plus airbalticcard offer free uk mobile number prefix +4475207xxxx ,just eur.0,15per call (not per minute) surcharge when receive calls through this uk number.
plus they charge per second for EU-EU calls...onesimcard+xxsim charge EU-EU calls per minute..
also airbalticcard charge data within EU per just 1kb per data session...

all these years i have used all availiable travelsim backend simcards , for EU travellers airbalticcard is much better than both onesimcard & xxsim, but i still prefer Piranha-mobile even for EU roaming. my 2nd backup choice is Mysims2go http://www.mysims2go.com/tariffcalcu...iid=23&lang=en , very cheap and stable http://www.mysims2go.com/document.aspx?iid=1060&lang=en plus they now offer direct through calls (not callback!)

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by Bossman

A lot of operators do not even connect to those +372 numbers. And those that connect charge a hefty premium. Nevertheless, make sure you have a backup, as no one sim is guaranteed to work as stated on their website.

Agreed, my experience has been that the better deal an international SIM seems to be, the more likely it is that it will leave you high and dry. "09" is my prime example.

[ckh]

My previous reply (10 hours ago) needed to be reviewed before posting. So a small test to see if this works at all. Known issue?!

[HappyCamp]

I went with Piranha Mobile and TruPhone as my two SIM cards for my trip to Europe. I also purchased a cheap dual SIM Samsung phone on Amazon for $28.

In addition I also am getting a Toggle Mobile SIM card as four of the countries in Europe that I am going to they offer "local numbers", which allows very low rates in those countries.

I decided to stay away from the SIM cards with Estonian or Isle of Man phone numbers, as I wanted people who called or texted me would have low rates.

[ckh]

Hello all,

Let me try to reformulate my last reply again. First of all thanks for all your replies.

rfranzq:
- Offcourse, i'll for sure let you all know my experiences both after the first leg and afterwards.
- I'm planning to take 2 iphones and buy an additional new multi-band phone with a large battery. Maybe a Nokia Asha model.

MBK:
- I really explored onesimcard in detail, but choose for xxsim at the end THIS morning. It's comparable (what costed be some additional questions by email to find out) and they offer both an free US and European number (except the 15 cpm offcourse) and have cheaper sms rates.

DRNewcomb:
- Good point. Thanks!!! In this case I'll setup my home VOIP number to simultaneously call both US mobile numbers. This will then effectively cost us 17 cpm euro in total to receive calls worldwide (2cpm VOIP, 15 cpm XXsim)
- Too bad my VOIP provider doens't allow SMS. I'll research Anveo as they seem to offer a kind of service to build your own Google Voice service. Or are they better ways around this issue?

In general I'm however curious why most of your are against the Estonian number, even if they offer a US number to hand out to friends en family.

At the end paying 17 cpm for a good global reach with one sim provider seems a good deal to me. But offcourse we'll also work with local prepaid sims.

I'll give all mentioned alternatives a view. Anyone familiar with GT-SIM?

Kind Regards,

[HappyCamp]

Originally Posted by HappyCamp

I went with Piranha Mobile and TruPhone as my two SIM cards for my trip to Europe. I also purchased a cheap dual SIM Samsung phone on Amazon for $28.

In addition I also am getting a Toggle Mobile SIM card as four of the countries in Europe that I am going to they offer "local numbers", which allows very low rates in those countries.

I decided to stay away from the SIM cards with Estonian or Isle of Man phone numbers, as I wanted people who called or texted me would have low rates.

I didn't make it within the 60 minute time frame to edit my message. So I'll repost.

I went with Piranha Mobile and TruPhone as my two SIM cards for my trip to Europe. I also purchased a cheap dual SIM Samsung GT-E1182L phone (voice/text only) on Amazon for $28 that I will put these SIMs into. I will only be using the Piranha and TruPhone for voice and text. I will give out the US phone numbers to these SIM cards to friends and family.

I also am getting a Toggle Mobile SIM card as four of the countries in Europe that I am going to they offer "local numbers", which allows very low rates in those countries. Plus the data rates are pretty competitive.

I have a couple of unlocked Android phones. So the Toggle Mobile SIM will go in one of them. And then in the local countries I may be buying SIMs with data plans to go in the other Android phone, as I will be spending around two weeks in each country. Likely I will stick to using the Toggle Mobile SIM in the countries that they offer the "local number" service as the rate is about 15 UK pence ( $0.232 US ) per megabyte of data.

I decided to stay away from the SIM cards with Estonian or Isle of Man phone numbers, as I wanted people who called or texted me would have low rates.