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]