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Buying/using pre-paid SIM cards
Hallvard Tangeraas wrote:
Frank Slootweg wrote: For Australia: Communic8 (is Telstra): http://www.communic8.com.au/connected/ppm/index.asp Vodafone "no plans": http://www.vodafone.com.au/voda_help....jsp?gs=foryou I used Communic8. That worked fine, but could not SMS to Europe (The Netherlands). SMS messages went to the bit-bicket, but were charged. :-( Bummer! :-( I need to SMS mainly (phoning home will only be once in a while because of the cost), so the above probably won't be any good for me. If you really mainly need SMS to/from Europe, then I advise to use your normal SIM most of the time and only use the local (Oz/NZ) SIM when you need to. For my normal Dutch pre-paid Vodafone (iZi) SIM, SMS messages from Oz to The Netherlands cost EUR 0.75 (about AUD$ 1.35). Considering what the rest of an Oz holiday costs, I can live with that! :-) I did not try if I could *receive* SMS messages on my Oz Communic8 SIM (because I could not *send* any, nobody was going to reply, were they? :-)). If that works, you could leave your Oz/NZ SIM in your phone and only change it when you need to send an SMS message. Also realize, that, at least in the 'outback' areas of Oz, you will have *no* coverage, so mobile phones will not work at all. What we used as an alternative is a *normal* Telstra phone card, i.e. (mainly) for use with a normal phone. They have free-of-charge call-in numbers and you can enable voicemail on the card. That way people can leave a message for you (you will have to give them your voicemail box number and (Oz) call-in number. When you call the free call-in number, you will be notified if there are any messages for you. You can easily add money to these cards (also by credit card). You can transfer the balance and voicemail box of one card to another, and if you look carefully you can have a card with a long expiration time (my current one is somewhere way in 2004). You can use there cards from/in most countries, often with free-of-charge call-in numbers. So for example, I can call free-of-charge from The Netherlands to check my balance. Telstra is by no means the cheapest (in per-minute rates) card, but is very convenient for occasional use. If you want to call frequently, then *also* buy a cheap but less flexible card, for example the "Super Saver" cards from Coles supermarkets (AUD$ 30 for *500* minutes to most countries in Europe and North America). I hope this helps. [deleted] |
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