For those of you who are on Three-uk, time to rejoice!
Three just announced that roaming charges for 6 countries (Republic of Ireland, Australia, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Sweden and Denmark) will be dropped. this applies to both pay monthly and pay as you go!
If you want a UK# with free incoming in Switzerland, check out togglemobile.co.uk.
You get a UK# as standard. Additional #s on the same SIM (working simultaneously(!)) from several countries (also CH) are free for a month (for short trips) or 5GBP/year to keep permanently.
Incoming calls free in many countries. Charges never depend on which # you ́re called, only on where you are.
3p/min to the UK(fix+mobile), 3p to most EU-fixed lines, 9p to most EU-mobiles.
Drawbacks:
Data packages only in the UK. number portability only for UK #s if the SIM isn ́t used for 3 months, it ́s fully deactivated w/o warning (I really wonder why they do that, so stupid!) Whereever you call, everyone will only ever see the UK# Overall: Great offer, if they ́d get rid of the drawbacks. But for some uses it ́s still just great!
Maybe I should mention that the same offer already exists in the Netherlands ( www.togglemobile.nl ), and many other URLs in Europe have been reserved by Lycamobile, the company running this. This includes www.togglemobile.ch , although there is nothing on the website yet.
Maybe the equivalent Swiss service will start running soon?!
But as with all things Lycamobile does, I don ́t deem them very reliable. Which is a pitty, because their toggle-product has such great features.
3 had more or less the same deal a few years ago - I managed to capitalise on it a few times. I thought they had gotten rid of it, so interesting to see it back again. At the time it was where there was a 3 network, the countries look the same so I imagine its the same thing. So I can't imagine any other countries being added to that list...
Switzerland and France are now included. I'm thinking of going for this as for work I need a UK number that also works when I am at home in Switzerland, and I only want to carry one phone. Any other experiences with this service or a better way to achieve the same?
Not quite the same thing but I have a dual-SIM mobile, in which I have a Swiss card and a French card. Each can receive calls and texts at the same time (not sure how it handles call waiting etc). You choose which one is active for outgoing calls. For years I had two mobiles in my pocket - discovering that dual-SIM phones existed was a life-changer
I always wondered if it's possible to make and receive calls without having to insert a physical sim. I'm not sure if it's possible to have an online sim account? If so, then one can link their Apple ID to any number of sims and thus doing away with inserting physical SIM cards. I'm sure this can be possible if the phone companies tried really hard because you can make emergency calls without registering a sim on a phone.
Since Apple is in the business of killing little pieces of plastic (see the legacies of floppy disks, compact disks, and, if everything goes their way, credit cards) this would be a good idea for them. Maybe you could try selling it to Tim Cook?
That's aside from the point as CDMA phones cannot be used with GSM operators and vice versa. Of course they could just enclose the GSM SIM in the device's case but that would be more of a limitation for the consumer than anything
I tried one of these and it just didn't work. It involved a new sim tray, piece of flat wire and sticking your other sim in a holder round the back of the phone.
Didn't work. Besides being really ugly and probably invalidating all sorts of warranties )
Apparently, Three UK have just increased their prices dramatically - before you got 3000 minutes, 3000 SMS and unlimited data for 15 pounds on pre-pay, now you get 500 minutes, 3000 SMS and unlimited data for 25 pounds.
That's just too expensive now - I can get cheaper roaming from Swisscom. I don't get unlimited data, but simply don't need it, either - 200mb for 25 bucks is enough for me :-/