London and Cellphones

[digitalfever]

I'm a bit frazzled here. I'm going to London in May and I need to figure out how to stay in contact with my famjam and friends back home. I've looked into changing my plan into a international plan but it seems that the phone company is just practicing highway robbery with that one ... so now im looking into cellphones in the UK.


Do any of you have any suggestions?

i'm a bit confused... what the heck is a sim/sin card?

--- Also I'm Canadian.

[DaisyWhisper]

A sim card is the card that you put into your mobile phone that means you can make calls/send texts. The best thing you can do to keep in contact with your family whilst you are here would be to get an international pay as you go sim card, which means that you spend a certain amount of money on credit for your mobile and you can send texts for a reduced rate, and depending on what sim card you get, you might even get some free minutes bundled into that too.

Alternatively, if that is too much for you, you could use Skype to stay in contact with your family? That is what I do for calls and use an international sim to text my mum and dad when I am away in Sweden.

I am from the UK so if you need any more help, don't be afraid to ask!

[mllebamako]

Hmm well, it would be helpful to know what country you are from....But since you don't know what a sim card is, I'll assume you're American, since many phones don't have them there.

Sim cards are little chips you put in cell phones that contain all your info (contacts, texts, etc) and they also are linked to your number. So for example, you can bring an unlocked phone from the US that takes a sim card (usually you can get cheap unlocked Nokias on the internet) and then once in the UK, you could buy a sim card which is basically like buying a phone number through one of the phone companies and then you can buy credit (minutes) to put on the card to call.

Hope that is helpful. We can probably give more info if you say where you are from, how long you are going to the UK for, and are you getting this phone mainly to stay in contact with your friends in the US or elsewhere?

[London-FortCollins]

I live in London and the best international phone plan I found was 02 International Favorites. https://www.o2.co.uk/internationalfavourites

Now to be fair they've changed it a little bit since I signed up, before I believe it was something like 500minutes to any 3 numbers (mobiles or landlines) BUT the best feature I find is they assign you a "Call me" number. It works like this:

Say you want your friends in Colorado USA to be able to call your UK cell phone. Your UK cell phone number is 07812345678. If they called that number it would cost them say $3 a minute.

02 give you a "local" Colorado number of 970-123-4567 which when your friends and family dial it, are charged whatever they are charged on their normal plan. (20cents a minute or free as part of a bundle for example) That "local" Colorado number will actually go through to YOUR UK cell phone at no extra charge.

I believe you can add International Favorites for £10 a month in addition to adding credit to your phone. So say you add £40 to your phone at the beginning of the month. They will deduct £10 for International Favorites and you will be left with £30 to make normal UK based calls and send texts.

If you dont have a phone you'll want to pick up a cheap "Pay and Go" phone to put your sim card into. If you're literally going to use this for phone calls you can pick up a basic model for like £30 - https://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phones/...nes/all_brands Samsung and Nokia are both great brands.

If you go for 02 I would recommend buying the handset from 02. If you buy a handset that is assigned to another network you will need to "unlock" the phone to use it on any network and that costs about £10.

Good luck!

[snow_girl]

Skype! For $50 for the YEAR I get 550 minutes a month (That is $4 a month!!) to Canada landlines and mobiles. If you have a phone that has skype on it you can use your phone or I always just call on my computer works perfect

For local calls in the UK I just have a pay as you go phone with Orange mobile. It costs me about 10 pounds a month.

[digitalfever]

Hey -- Just to let you guys know I'm Canadian.

[DollOnAMusicBox]

I had the same dilemma when I went to the UK. What worked for me was downloading the textfree app for my ipod touch, and hopping onto the hotel wifi every night to text the family. That also made skype an option. But if you dont have an ipod i guess that doesnt help :s

[squeeker]

When I went to the UK, I always basically just used facebook and skype to contact friends and family back home, I didn't do it too much though, was too focussed on my boyfriend haha.. this last trip however I bought a cheap UK mobile phone through ebay and bought a UK-Canada adapter so I could charge it at my home (I found this at future shop I believe.. ) and then my boyfriend sent me a sim card before I left. But we just used it so he could call me when I arrived in the UK (he can call other uk mobiles for free when he tops up 10 pounds..) and then I basically tried keeping it charged but let it run dead too much because I didn't really use it.. lol. I kinda feel bad about that now.. but my parents called my boyfriend's mobile the one time and other times we went on facebook and I uploaded pictures and statuses, wrote and answered messages to say how I was.. and had a skype session with my family too.. but I guess that would depend on how much access you'd have to a computer.. anyways it seems you have lots of advice here so I'm sure you'll be able to pick the right thing for you!

EDIT: As I was reflecting on this later I remembered something else I forgot to add... in case it helps you. When I went to the UK, I signed into skype using my own skype account which I set up in Canada.. and I think when I called my family back home on their phones skype charged me the canada-canada rate which is much cheaper than uk-canada rate.. so just something else to keep in mind.. though depending on how much you will call them, you might want to get a skype plan.. or a completely different plan.. just thought I'd mention this in case it helps

[digitalfever]

I had the same dilemma when I went to the UK. What worked for me was downloading the textfree app for my ipod touch, and hopping onto the hotel wifi every night to text the family. That also made skype an option. But if you dont have an ipod i guess that doesnt help :s

Does that work on blackberry?

When I went to the UK, I always basically just used facebook and skype to contact friends and family back home, I didn't do it too much though, was too focussed on my boyfriend haha.. this last trip however I bought a cheap UK mobile phone through ebay and bought a UK-Canada adapter so I could charge it at my home (I found this at future shop I believe.. ) and then my boyfriend sent me a sim card before I left. But we just used it so he could call me when I arrived in the UK (he can call other uk mobiles for free when he tops up 10 pounds..) and then I basically tried keeping it charged but let it run dead too much because I didn't really use it.. lol. I kinda feel bad about that now.. but my parents called my boyfriend's mobile the one time and other times we went on facebook and I uploaded pictures and statuses, wrote and answered messages to say how I was.. and had a skype session with my family too.. but I guess that would depend on how much access you'd have to a computer.. anyways it seems you have lots of advice here so I'm sure you'll be able to pick the right thing for you!

EDIT: As I was reflecting on this later I remembered something else I forgot to add... in case it helps you. When I went to the UK, I signed into skype using my own skype account which I set up in Canada.. and I think when I called my family back home on their phones skype charged me the canada-canada rate which is much cheaper than uk-canada rate.. so just something else to keep in mind.. though depending on how much you will call them, you might want to get a skype plan.. or a completely different plan.. just thought I'd mention this in case it helps

That;s a good suggestion. Where did you get the phone from?

---------- Post added at 03:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:54 AM ----------

I had the same dilemma when I went to the UK. What worked for me was downloading the textfree app for my ipod touch, and hopping onto the hotel wifi every night to text the family. That also made skype an option. But if you dont have an ipod i guess that doesnt help :s

Does that work on blackberry?

When I went to the UK, I always basically just used facebook and skype to contact friends and family back home, I didn't do it too much though, was too focussed on my boyfriend haha.. this last trip however I bought a cheap UK mobile phone through ebay and bought a UK-Canada adapter so I could charge it at my home (I found this at future shop I believe.. ) and then my boyfriend sent me a sim card before I left. But we just used it so he could call me when I arrived in the UK (he can call other uk mobiles for free when he tops up 10 pounds..) and then I basically tried keeping it charged but let it run dead too much because I didn't really use it.. lol. I kinda feel bad about that now.. but my parents called my boyfriend's mobile the one time and other times we went on facebook and I uploaded pictures and statuses, wrote and answered messages to say how I was.. and had a skype session with my family too.. but I guess that would depend on how much access you'd have to a computer.. anyways it seems you have lots of advice here so I'm sure you'll be able to pick the right thing for you!

EDIT: As I was reflecting on this later I remembered something else I forgot to add... in case it helps you. When I went to the UK, I signed into skype using my own skype account which I set up in Canada.. and I think when I called my family back home on their phones skype charged me the canada-canada rate which is much cheaper than uk-canada rate.. so just something else to keep in mind.. though depending on how much you will call them, you might want to get a skype plan.. or a completely different plan.. just thought I'd mention this in case it helps

That;s a good suggestion. Where did you get the phone from?

[squeeker]

That;s a good suggestion. Where did you get the phone from?

I looked on ebay uk, I think my boyfriend actually helped me find them.. not sure if the same seller is around but I did a little search.. the one I got I think was a nokia 3310.. here's one for sale: https://www.ebay.co.uk/ctg/Nokia-331...=p3286.c0.m14# but if you do a search on ebay uk there are a few other ones.. this one is a nice simple style, just gotta watch the buttons.. when my boyfriend called me when I got to the uk the first time.. I kept hanging up on him.. to answer you press the middle button.. it will make sense when you look at the screen and stuff.. don't press the button with the little phone symbol on it.. lol.. that's probably for making a call though.. and make sure you get a sim card sent to you

[Sierra]

Just get a Virgin UK pay as you go phone, it's what I do whenever I'm in the UK and it's great. You can switch out the SIM card for more minutes if you travel to a different country. And you can usually buy them in vending machines.

[DollOnAMusicBox]

Does that work on blackberry?

If you have a blackberry I believe thats an internationally compatible phone. Talk toyour peovider it SHOULD work overseas.