Reliability?

[TLDMAT]

I am interested in your opinions/views on the reliability and/or ease of use of international sims. I am planning for upcoming travels to various European countries and when I leave, I don’t want to deal with phone problems any more than I have to.
In my research I find two companies appear to meet my needs, Telestial Passport and Geosim. Both have rates and features that are acceptable. What has been your experience on the reliability of these two and are there others that I should look into?
TIA

[fsotirop]

have a look also on onesimcard https://www.onesimcard.com/cell-phone-rates/#info

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by TLDMAT

I am interested in your opinions/views on the reliability and/or ease of use of international sims.

The most common views are: They work [as described]. And they don't work. Unfortunately, you do not find out about the latter until you are trying to use it when you are 'away.'

Originally Posted by TLDMAT

In my research I find two companies appear to meet my needs, Telestial Passport and Geosim. What has been your experience on the reliability of these two .......?

Telestial is ekit. The best prices I know of for these SIMs is on eBay seller name: ekitmobileusa --it is ekit. Note that they sell various SIMs. Make sure you get what is most advantages to you. The SIMple calling SIM has different rates in the US [lower] that might be better than their other SIMs that do not have special US rates. I have six different ekit SIMs currently and their customer service is very good. I have no experience with Geosim.

Remember to compare cost of acquisition to overall cost.

Originally Posted by TLDMAT

........ and are there others that I should look into?

I would also strongly reccommend Tru SIM I am impressed with them.

Summary: Check the various data rates if you need data. Make a list of all the countries you are going to and see what each SIM charges for the kind of calls you will be making. Remember to account for the cost of acquisition.

[fsotirop]

I also like tru..good service, but their rates within Europe (except uk) are out of the market... unacceptable high for my standards.

a reliable (personaly tested) and cheap option for roaming within Europe would be Searoam , €0.22/min. for outgoing calls. http://www.searoam.com/ Also their calls are rated at a minimum duration of 60 seconds and then in units of 30 seconds thereafter. Good customer service and attractive data rates for €0.50/mb within Europe.

*I would skip Geosim, mainly because their service is based on cloud9 network.

Ιf you plan using data as well , ekit Global Premium Service sim (also tested as reliable) has excellent European data rates (except France) for only $0,39/mb (best rate on market) but their voice rates are a bit expensive on this particular sim, which is mainly focused on cheap data roaming.
the price of this sim is also attractive , only $9 per sim. Excellent customer service.
http://www.bunac.ekit.com/ekit/Mobil.../ekglobal_blue

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

The most common views are: They work [as described]. And they don't work. Unfortunately, you do not find out about the latter until you are trying to use it when you are 'away.'

This comes close to my experience. Sometimes they just let you down. Murphy's law says that when they do, it will be at the most inconvenient moment. For this reason I suggest always having a "Plan B", either a conventional postpaid SIM or Mobal as a fall-back.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most international prepaid SIMs use a callback system to connect outgoing calls. This means the call goes from your phone to the SIM provider's switch and back to the final destination. It can cause some calls to have an unacceptable audio delay. Imagine local a call made in Japan that traveled from Japan to the US or Europe and back to Japan. The delay is similar to what you might experience with a satellite call. For this reason I suggest you ask about and consider where the calls are switched and prefer a system that switches calls near one end of the route made by most of your calls.