UK Sim card for American iPhone 4S?

[LVSaint]

I want to be able to pick up a UK simcard for my US iPhone 4S when I travel over. I know the phone will accept GSM microsims.

I was wondering how easy it is to get one? What providers do good prepaid, short term deals. I dont care for data usage as I can use wifi connections for this. Just calling/texting the UK/USA

Any posters based abroad done this?

Simpler to just buy a cheap 'pay as you go' throw away? Preferred to have it all on one device though...

[mdearlove]

You can order a GiffGaff sim - they tend to be the cheapest. The only issue you will have is that it will be a standard SIM so you would have to cut it down to size - plenty of instructions online. £10 will get you 250 mins, unlimited texts and unlimited internet for a month. You can order via my affiliate link if you want - we both get £5 credit when you top up for the first time. There are ways to get a microSim done for you through the GiffGaff community but it may take a few extra days to get it.

Just get the sim sent to someone you are going to see when you get here.

My affiliate link http://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/mdearlove

[LVSaint]

You can order a GiffGaff sim - they tend to be the cheapest. The only issue you will have is that it will be a standard SIM so you would have to cut it down to size - plenty of instructions online. £10 will get you 250 mins, unlimited texts and unlimited internet for a month. You can order via my affiliate link if you want - we both get £5 credit when you top up for the first time. There are ways to get a microSim done for you through the GiffGaff community but it may take a few extra days to get it.

Just get the sim sent to someone you are going to see when you get here.

My affiliate link http://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/mdearlove

Thanks for the info mate. DO I need to inform my cell phone company here of what I intend to do - ie might I have any issues with them possibly claiming "oh it's a locked phone" and try to sell me their ripoff international plan?


I can probably get a cutting tool to shape it right before I leave, but it says on the giffgaff site that they can send microsims or regular sims.

Looking at the tariff, it says 250 minutes included but says calls cost 10p a minute to UK numbers. Does not even mention US numbers/texting. How does this work?

(I'll use your link if I decide to do it.)

[terrypward]

It looks pretty reasonable to be fair...

http://giffgaff.com/index/pricing

Calling USA or Canada

Landline and Mobile (charged in per minute increments) 8p per minute
Texts 8p per text
Picture messages (MMS) 24p per MMS

I am off to the states next month and want to do the opposite with my iPhone 4, any ideas on which ones will give me decent data and cheap texts/calls back home?

[mdearlove]

You just need an unlocked phone to use the GiffGaff sim. Not sure how locked down the phones are over there but you can call your provider and see. They may well unlock for a fee, or you could always jailbreak your phone but then you are getting more technical. I haven't run a jail break on anything other than an ipod touch 2g so I am along way behind the curve.

If you are going to the states Terry, I find T-mobile to have the most reasonable plans for data and local calling but I wouldn't use it for calls back to the uk. You would need to check their coverage. I paid $50 for a months unlimited plan, although most of the time I was only getting EDGE data speeds as they use slightly different frequencies for 3G coverage on their network.

[LVSaint]

CAn't really help you Terrypward as I am fairly thick when it comes to cell coverage and keep to a mainstream Verizon plan.


That giffgaff plan does look reasonable. So after the 250 minutes with the 10 quid plan, uk calls cost 10p per minute? Presumably international calls and texts cost straight off.

Is data really unlimited? ie - I can use internet on the phone as much as I like without incurring extra fees?

What about incoming texts/calls from USA? Would they cost the same as if I was sending them?

[mdearlove]

If you think you need more than 250 mins (and we only count outgoing, we don't pay for incoming here in the UK) you can add one of the other "Goodybags" - £15 gets you 400 mins, £20 - 800, £25 - 1500