Advice for SIMs for a European trip

ajwatts on 23/11/2017 - 20:24

Hola, Bargainitos!

I shall soon be going to Germany, France, England and Italy. I know zippity-doodah about foreign mobile stuff. The best I can do for myself is check if my phone uses the correct "bands".

What I and my companion have now:

Kogan Agora 6 Plus (4G LTE, dual-sim) on Kogan Mobile's 1.5gb plan.
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 on Boost $40 plan.

The Samsung user is planning to buy a secondary, cheap, dual-sim Android phone for the trip.

I'm pretty comfortably checking if SIMs and plans are compatible with our handsets. What I would like to know is what SIMs to buy, and some general tips on activation, etc.

What we'd really like is to be able to call one another (for emergencies), be able to text one another (as much as possible) and have around 3-5gb of data (as we will have wi-fi in our hotels, etc. and assume there is as much free wifi around as there is here).

We're not fussed about using a single SIM for all countries or swapping in each country. That's part of the dual-sim appeal.

We understand we could use data sims and communicate via things like Viber and we would consider this for an amazing data plan, but would prefer not to. We're fairly old-school.

Thanks in advance, folks - if anyone will steer me right, it's all'a y'all.

Mobile

Comments

  • number5 on 23/11/2017 - 20:42
    +1

    Here is the research I've done two years ago https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/194218 We ended up using a German Ortel SIM cards (bought locally from https://www.travelgear.com.au/europe-sim-cards/)

    But now the new roaming rules are effective (free roaming across Europe zone) you should be able to find better deals on http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/European_Union

    Feel free to ask if you have any question, will try to answer as much as I can.

  • Procyon on 23/11/2017 - 20:42

    Europe recently passed a "roam like at home" policy:

    You pay exactly the same price for using these services when travelling in the EU as you would if you were at home. In practice, your operator simply charges or takes your roaming consumption from the volumes in your domestic mobile tariff plan / bundle.

    I think it's still being rolled out, and you should check the details with whatever provider you choose. In particular, many providers would like to see proof that you have a "stable connection" to that particular country, so that you're not just buying the cheapest plan and for the majority of your time and data using it in a different country. Probably won't matter for a holiday though.

    Mobile plans in Germany are usually fairly poor value for money (compared to the rest of Europe), as they are still recovering the installation cost of their 4G networks. I do know that Vodafone DE offers roaming on their CallYa prepaid plans, which might be fine, though you'll probably find something better today.

    In Austria, Hofer Telekom also does EU roaming. Hofer is the Austrian version of Aldi, and they actually own the Australian Aldi stores!

    I'm not too familiar with mobile services in other countries, so can't help there. Out of curiosity, why do you prefer standard SMS to data-only chat apps?

  • HilMcK46 on 25/11/2017 - 00:11

    If you buy a UK sim it will cover all of Europe for same cost as UK including data. Good value for money too. Depends which country you will be arriving in first really.

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