Sim card to use in England and France

I can't answer your question until I know more about your situation.

Is your phone compatible and unlocked?

Data, text, or phone?

How much?

Are you happy to have UK roaming policy (either much more expensive or highly restricted unless you pay a lot) on your sim in France?

Do you know that wherever you will be in the both countries will have decent coverage from the company you will get it from?

How many months will you need it?

Do you know which size sim to buy to fit your phone?

In addition to Nigel's questions, I have some more: Who is your current provider? Are you going to be communicating with other travelers in your party, or calling back to the US, or making calls to hotels, restaurants, etc in the country? How long will you be in each country?

Be aware that if you do buy "A SIM card that is useable in England and France," you are probably talking about an international SIM (Telestial, MaxRoam, etc). This will have higher rates than one bought in England or France, but it will allow you to keep the same phone number for all travels and will be refillable anywhere. If you buy a SIM in England from one of the local cell companies, it will work in France, and while the the rates will be higher there than in EnNgland, they are capped since they're both in the EU. But it may not be easy to refill outside the "home" country, so you may need to use it up, then buy another one in France. Will this be a problem?

Once you give us more information, people can advise you better for your situation. Particularly important are the questions about how much you intend to use the phone and for what. There is no one size fits all solution for cell phones these days - alas.

We are new to global calling. In the past used just Skype and emails. So are learning as we go.

We don't use Smart phones at home. We have a Blackberry Storm, which I'm told is capable of global calling, that we can put back into service for this trip. Have to figure out how to find out if the phone is "unlocked". We will make or receive few calls. Just want to be prepared for an emergency. Our server is Verizon and we have heard their global service is very unreliable, so have several recommendations to buy a sim card in Europe and use the Blackberry. We will be there for only two weeks, splitting time between England and France. We arrive at Heathrow. Figured we could get sim card either on line or at a shop at Heathrow. If our trip goes well, I doubt that we would use many, if any, minutes or have to refill the sim card.

Thanks for taking the time to help us figure out this process.

Nancy

Googling, I found that the Blackberry Storm does have "international" capability (not all Verizon phones do). There is no easy way to test if it's unlocked while you're still in the US, however, since it works on a different system in the US vs in Europe. You can contact Verizon to see if it needs to be unlocked; if it does, they should be able to tell you how to do it for free (since it's fully paid for).

If you just want a phone for emergencies, you probably would do best with one of Verizon's travel plans, if your current phone will work in Europe. Others have posted here that they work fine as long as you make SURE you set it up with the International Customer Service division, not the regular CS people (who can talk as if they know what they're doing, but often don't).

If you don't want to use Verizon with your current phone, you can bring the Blackberry and see if you can get it to work in England by taking it to a phone store (they can test it quickly with one of their SIM cards). If the Blackberry won't work, the store can sell you a basic model (something like £20) that will work to make calls.

Which terminal are you arriving at in Heathrow? Looking at the airport's website, I see there is a "SIM LOCAL" shop in the arrivals area of T2, T3, and T5; I don't know what companies they work with, or if they also sell cheap phones (some stores will only sell the expensive, high profit smartphones). If you don't find a suitable store in Heathrow, you can look for a Carphone Warehouse in London; this chain of stores works with multiple carriers and will also sell inexpensive phones; they will help you select the best phone and plan for your needs. If you have your hotel's postal code (look on their website), you can use the store locator website to find your nearest Carphone Warehouse: http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/store-locator/.

All SIM cards bought in Europe work in all other European countries, they all have roaming. There will be little difference between a SIM card bought in the UK or France, except that you will get a UK or French phone number respectively.
Roaming charges within the EU are capped, a call from a UK phone in France to a UK number will not cost significantly more than the same call from the UK.
But, there is no cap on call charges to or from outside the EU. You will need to check tha rates offered for that.

So if I buy a SIM card in UK, I'll be able to use it in Austria, Italy, Spain, etc??

"So if I buy a SIM card in UK, I'll be able to use it in Austria, Italy, Spain, etc??"

Yes. As Chris said, you'll be roaming, at slightly higher rates. A friend of mine has T-Mobile UK SIM which he uses in lots of countries; he just keeps refilling it.

A few things to be aware of:

1. When you go outside the EU, the rates are not capped. My friend's UK SIM has good rates within the EU and really good rates for calls back to the US. I warned him to check the rates when he went to Turkey. Good thing I did - it was £1.50 per minute!

2. You may or may not be able to refill a SIM easily online. He refills his with an AMEX without difficulty, but another poster here reported that Visa and Mastercard won't work on T-Mobile UK's website. I was unable to get the website for my French Mobiho SIM to work for refills. When you're in the country of purchase, there's always lots of ways to refill a SIM, but once you leave that country, you either have to have extra refill vouchers you pre-purchased, or be able to do it online or on the phone.

3. If you're counting on keeping a SIM for months or years across multiple trips: some SIM's expire after a certain amount of time of non-use; for these, you can send a text to count as "use," which is cheaper than a call if you're in the US just before expiration. But some require regular refills to prevent expiration, and this can get expensive if you're not using it much.

Thanks, Nigel, Harold and Chris for all the tips... very helpful.

I will check with Verizon about whether our Blackberry is unlocked. Our basic, everyday phones will make international calls from US but not work for global calling. So, it looks like we will buy the sim card in England. Our first nights are in Bath and I see there are 3 of the Carphone Warehouses there. And we can check the SimLocal at Heathrow as we will be in T5. There website indicates they probably sell the affordable phones.

Again, thanks for the help!

Nancy

ndarigol, "Our basic, everyday phones will make international calls from US but not work for global calling"
The phrase "but not work for global calling" rings alarm bells for me. All operators in Europe use the same system (GSM) and all (unlocked) phones work on all networks. You can thank EU consumer protection for dictating interoperability in order to force competition.

This is not the case in the USA. Some operators use GSM, some others use their own system. Some of the previous posters mentioned "compatible", but you may not have picked up on this.
If your phone is GSM it is OK for Europe. If it is some other system, it will never work on the European GSM system.

As Harold says "you can bring the Blackberry and see if you can get it to work .... If not, the store can sell you a basic model (something like £20) that will work to make calls."

Chris, I figure we will do just as you and Harold suggest with the Blackberry since it seems we will have plenty of chances to pick up a different, affordable phone, if necessary.