Hello again wonderful people of BF! Does anyone of you uses Globe or Smart Roaming services in the UK? Will it be wise to use this and keep your mobile number in the Philippines or just buy another SIM in your country of destination? Suggestions please? Thank you. Anne
My wife did for a while - cant remember if it was Globe or Smart. You can top up your load here in the UK. But she found that with Skype and Viber there was no longer the need. She also uses Chikka. And of course has a local sim here that she hardly ever uses for contact with the Philippines.
She used this company for a while..but like I say she stopped eventually. https://www.callingnow.co.uk/SIM_Cards/Smart_Pinoy/Smartpinoysim.html
I used to have a Smart roaming SIM when my wife was still in Philippines. She uses it now. Best option is to use the one you have in Philippines and switch to roaming before leaving. But she forgot to do it which is why she now uses my old one. Smart is best because easy to top up here using Callingnow. You can then send a text from Philippines to UK for 1 peso. Not good for texting Phils from the uk though as it's about 36p. It's actually cheaper to use UK network. So we get texts from Phils on it and send replies using Skype sms.
Always wise to check the cost of calling, there can be a big difference between different networks and the different packages that they offer. I use Skype as much as possible, though I sometimes buy a local sim card when I am travelling abroad. My local UK payg sim is from Virgin, but their charges are crazy especially since the EU regulations came into force. These regulations have forced down the costs of roaming calls made from within the EU (ex UK) but have pushed up all other costs. I only really keep it because my bank accounts and various other things are linked to it. 40 pence per minute to make a UK to UK call. 18 pence per minute to make an EU roaming to Anywhere call. About 200 pence per minute to make a call from Philippines to the UK. 400 pence per minute to make a call from Egypt to the UK. Calling abroad from the UK costs 82 pence per minute to most countries outside the EU.
Roaming on Smart or Globe prepaid is not like a UK person roaming on their prepaid or postpaid account, once you start roaming on Smart or Globe you no longer have voice calls, you only have text and as the guys have said above sending a text from the UK to the Philippines is very expensive however your family can text you for 1 peso which is really good so it is worth the cost of roaming for that alone. On Smart if you register on their website and attach your SIM phone number you can change your roaming status via the internet whether you are in the Philippines or outside the Philippines, you just need to remember that you must have a minimum 100 peso load balance to be able to receive texts from your family back home. As Maharg says one of the best options is to receive texts on your phone which costs your family 1 peso a text and send replies on Skype which costs you about 3 peso a text, I've been doing that ever since Skype first started an SMS service round about 2005. On O2 a UK prepaid international SIM gives you the ability to call home to mobiles and landlines for about 10 pence a minute that's about 6 peso a minute, the same SIM also gives you free calling in the UK about 12000 minutes for a load price of about £15 a month (about 1100 peso a month), the £15 load is what gets used up for voice calls and texts, I have still to find out if the load expires, I think it does not expire (I only got the International SIM this month)
I do as oss does - get a text and reply on Skype,to phone text, or, if she who makes all the trouble happens to be in an area where her pocket wifi actually works, we can use Skype proper or Facetalk between her iPad and my iPhone (this last is actually pretty good).
I used to keep a Smart SIM card alive in the UK but have ditched that as my fiancée in the Philippines has free wi-fi access to the internet at work and home. If you are a Filipino coming to the UK, you will probably want to keep your PH mobile for a while at least and the cheapest way to top-up is by using an app called SENDLY... http://www.sendly.com/ Over time however, you may not want to keep your PH SIM card unless you have friends/relatives back home that can only communicate via text message. Google Hangouts is my preferred text/video messenger now (I don't use its SMS feature) as the text messages are saved into my Google account, along with any emails. That provides a single date-sorted repository for all electronic communications that can be used in support of any Fiancée Visa application. I also use Chikka in the UK but only to send an SMS (for free) to my fiancée if she is offline. She can then find internet access and chat to me for free using Google Hangouts. I never have mobile data enabled on my phone as the charges are exorbitant. But I do use an app called FON so that I can access the internet for free at millions of hotspots in the UK, so it is really easy and free to keep in contact with a loved one overseas these days.
Thank you for all the responses everyone! Appreciate it a lot. I was thinking for quite some time now to keep my Globe Sim but based on what I'm hearing from you guys is that it would be more expensive to do so. Also, just talked to my friend who's in Cambridge that she used her PH sim for a month only. Guess I will be ditching my PH sims by the end of the month. Thank you so much for your points of view JohnAsh, Maharg, Dave_e, Methersgate, Howerd, oss
I'd just add that in terms of free internet calling with video between smartphones and computers we have found FaceTime to be the best, in terms of signal quality and ease of use, followed by Skype and then Viber, but the Skype to phone system (which does cost money) is good for non-smart phones. It's text service is poor, though.
Should've listened to you, guys! Twenty four hours prior to my travel to the UK, fiancé credited 500php to my Globe sim, activated the roaming service but when I tried turning it on during my stop over in Singapore, I got no signal. In other words, it didn't work! Pffftt.
