Ljyoung

I've been reading many of the posts re: cell phones and a few which mention phone cards. We will be traveling in Scotland, Wales and England this summer and I will want to reconfirm reservations along the way or notify hotels if we are delayed etc... I also won't deny that I would like the comfort of being able to call for road service should we have any car trouble - given the amount of driving we will be doing? And,we may need to call the US 3-4 times. Given this scenario, does anyone have a recommendation for us re: phone use? Thanks for any assistance.......

Firstmate

I have T-Mobile w/the International Roaming GMS capability.It works great. If I am in the UK it cost $0.99 per minute to be on "International Roaming" in the UK.Meaning any inbound or out bound calls to the USA are billed at the rate of $0.99 per minute. Other phones have this ability. If you are only going to make a few calls the convenience of having a cell phone to call any time is well worth it. If you are going to call often you may prefer a Phone Card.

Ljyoung

Thanks Firstmate. I am a Verizon customer. I checked w/ them some time ago and they had a program charging $1.49/minute plus a $300.00 deposit for the equipment rental. Maybe this could work for me if only making a few calls. As you can imagine, I don't relish the idea of changing my service. My husband is w/ AT&T. We'll have to check w/ them.

flanneruk

For the calls you describe, you need a mobile phone.

Sod's Law dictates that if your car breaks down it will be miles from the nearest phone box (it'll also be in a valley with lousy mobile phone reception as well, but that's another story). And, while driving, finding a phone box you can legally park nearby is always surprisngly difficult - especially in towns - when you want to ask a hotel how to find them.

The belt and braces solution that we all adopt is to have your mobile phone, but keep enough change to use a phone box if you're in one of the (very, very few) spots with poor reception.

xyz123

UK cell phones rates are among the cheapest there are using an outfit known as Virgin Mobile. Keep in mind you may want to go back to Britain, have friends who want to go to Britain or might even want to see the SIM card pack with whatever is left on e bay or something like that.

Having said that, phone cards are good too but won't help too much if you are stranded in the car miles from the nearest public phone booth.

So there is really not one good answer. If you are a T Mobile US customer, the best bet is to get an inexpensive (they sell them) tri band phone and use your T mobile roaming feature as described above. You have to register for it but they are relatively lenient in the rules for allowing it.

Now I love new toys and prefer the convenience of my very own British cell phone and feel great knowing I actually have a British telephone number and since I visit London several times a year, it was certainly worth it for me to sign up with Virgin Mobile whose features are described elsewhere on the board.

In some respects, you can have the best of all worlds. Once you have used 5 minutes of time on Virgin Mobile on any given day, their rate drops to 5p a minute. So you can use the mobile to access the access number on the phone card and in effect you are paying a 5p surcharge not to have to worry about road side phone booths, calling b & b's to tell them you will be delayed, making dinner reservations on the run, meeting new friends and getting together etc.

Incidentally, on a related topic, in the US the FCC is pushing a plan to prohibit mobile phone companies from locking their phones. We will all be better off it this passes.

Glyn_Williams

Certainly, a cell phone is a much better idea than a pay phone. Pay phones are slowly dying out around the UK, since operators such as BT are not making enough money on them.

If you are planning on returning to the UK then l would suggest purchasing a Virgin Mobile phone. Run by Richard Branson's 'Virgin' company - this network provides great value for money, and the coverage isn't too bad either.

If your looking for value for money then the Virgin network will be the one which will be most suited for you. However, if you want guaranteed coverage then Orange is probably the best network. It is certainly more expensive, but you may feel slightly more secure if your going through some country lane where most cell phone signals die.

Alternativly, you could even hire a cell phone. I believe they operate this service at Heathrow Airport and probably Gatwick, but l don't know about the rest.

Best thing to do is do a bit of research into how much your planning on spending and also checking out which service would be most suited to you. Here's a couple of websites:

www.virgin.com/mobile
www.orange.co.uk
www.vodafone.co.uk (who l believe do cell phone hire)

Hope this provides some assistance.

Ljyoung

Thanks everyone for your assistance. At this point I think I will check into the web sites suggested. The Virgin phone sounds like a good option and if I'm understanding - there is a SIM card that provides minutes vs. having to sign a service contract? Thanks again....

Glyn_Williams

All cell phone companies in the UK provide two options - Pay as you Go and Contract. All you need for Pay as you Go is a SIM Card (most usually cost around £10 and are available at most electrical and music shops). You then 'top up' onto this card the amount of credit you wish to spend (ie the amount you wish to spend on calls). You can then top up as much as you want whenever you want in the future. No contracts, no fuss.

I can't quite remember whether or not there was Pay as you Go in America. Certainly, it is an ideal way of calling from a cell phone in your situation.

Hope that helps.

melr

Hi,

The only drawback with Virgin is that it 'piggybacks' on T-Mobile's network, which isn't the most extensive. Orange, Vodafone and O2 give better reception in more remote parts such as Wales and Scotland.

SB_Travlr

Thanks to all for this very helpful info. We'll be in England at a phoneless cottage in May, two weeks before next grandchild is due. If I can give the family my UK mobile number, that will solve many problems!

xyz123

I know I will probably get jumped on for this remark but I'll make it anyway..the US is somewhat primitive when it comes to mobile phone technology. The US was very slow to embrace GSM technology and even today the GSM frequencies used in the US are different than most of the rest of the world (Canada of course excepted). Having said that, there were reasons for this that were sort of not in the control of the Americans and it might have been very expensive to have adopted the European frequencies but then again America is very slow to embrace globalization (how many other countries still use the archaic system of measurement or Farenheit temperatures) but in answer to a previous poster.

There is a Virgin mobile prepaid operation in the US; completely unaffiliated with the Virgin Mobile UK operation (or the Virgin Mobile Australia one also). It operates sort of on the pre pay principle, call costs are 25 cents a minute for the first 10 minutes of use each day and 10 cents a minute thereafter.

The catch is that it is most assuredly not a GSM operation. You can't just go out and buy a SIM card pack; rather you have to buy a special Virgin Mobile phone starting at $70. You then buy top off cards much as in a European pay as you go scheme.

Like its counterpart in the UK, Virgin Mobile US does not have its own towers but rather uses Sprint PCS towers so the coverage is as good or as bad as the coverage of Sprint PCS in the US.

Other companies have pay as you go with similar albeit slightly higher prices. T mobile I believe has a small pay as you go network and they are a GSM operaton although as noted above on 1900 frequency which is inaccessible on European dual band phones.

sgrunow

Hi, we rent a phone while in Uk, we use Adams phone, www.adamsphones.com. This work well for us. Can't hurt to check out the web page. Good luck
Sam

Ljyoung

Such helpful feedback. We're researching options based upon the above info. Actually got my husband involved in some of the planning!!Thanks again......

SB_Travlr

Correcting sgrunow: Adams phone web site is a UK site, URL is http://www.adam-phones.co.uk/

Thanks, sgrunow -- looks like a good option. Vodafone, Orange and Virgin UK sites offer phones for sale, but don't seem to offer many bargains there (especially given the current dollar/pound exchange rate).