If you have roaming set up for your mobile, it will automatically work wherever you travel to even to tri-band countries like USA (assuming you have a tri-band phone, in other words it needs to be only set up once. Call charges can be reduced while abroad by 25% by paying a nominal fee of £2.50 (that's for O2).
That would still amount to £1.27 per minute calling UK. So if anyone is not charged much, that is because they haven't used the phone much, except perhaps for text messaging.

No problem caveman
We just thought as it was her 1st time alone it would be a good idea if she needed to call us or we needed to contact her

I think next time she goes she will only use her phone in an emergency, my poor hubby nearly had a heart attack when he saw her bill

I'll be taking my mobile with me when I go to Sharm in the summer.

My operator is Virgin Mobile, this is their tariff....

Making a call £1.70 per minute

Receiving a call £0.80 per min

Sending a text message £0.35 per text

Hi guys,

Is it worth while taking mobile phone (o2 is my provider)
What is the coverage like in Sharm?
Is it expensive to call/text mobile to mobile in sharm? hubby likes to go off for a wee donner (walk) and I like to stay in touch with him/kids.

Whats your experiences?

Cheers, Lee

Hi Lee,

I was an o2 customer last summer when i was in sharm, and had to make a lot of calls back home to north of ireland as my sister had a baby while i was out there with my husband, mum and other sister. Anyway - between texts and phone calls, my bill was £60 more expensive than normal! Given the circumstances, i didn't mind, but will be using my mobile a lot less - if at all - this year while in Sharm el Sheikh

Hope this helps.

Tills

Hi

I am on Orange, and it was Mobinal/or Vodaphone the provider in Sharm, and we had 100% coverage. It cost me 35p a text and my phone was on all the time. £1.00 a min if you are calling back home. My bill was a fiver.

HTH

Michelle.

you can set up 'international traveller' on o2 before you go. phone customer services who will add it on and i think the minimum subscription is for a month so you can give them a start and end date at the same time! its about £2.99 for the month but well worth it as you save on texts and calls....

With and without the add on of 2.99 or whatever, what do o2 charge for a text message to britain and do you get charged for receiving one? We have both 02 and 3 so can use either.

LD it all depends on if you're on contract on PAYG.

My o2 contract is 40p per text (free to receive).

http://travelabroad.o2-uktech.com/coverage.php will give you call charges.

Coverage is OK there (depending on type of phone)

Thanks for that Everest. Shall check with 02 that we have the phone set up to use abroad, its a new phone but existing number and contract so am sure we shall be ok. Cheers.

one thing to watch out for when abroad is not to leave your phone in automatic for service provider if there are more than one your phone will lock on to the strongest at that time and can keep changing back and fourth,everytime it does you might get charged and it mounts up . it happened to me in ibiza
mike

Hi everyone!

In my spare time I test phones for Nokia...I know, geeky, but someone has to do it...

For the tests, I use SIM cards from every UK operator, both home and abroad, and this has been my experience...(so far)

Most expensive for calls/texts: Orange, but good call reception and receipt of text messages

Most unreliable for calls/texts: T-Mobile (Virgin) sometimes it could take up to 3 days for me to receive texts!

Worst all round: 3 - incapable of setting account up so I could use phone abroad, had 4 attempts at this last year, involving 15 calls to customer services, every time I was told 'yes, you can now use your phone abroad' only to have no signal when I arrived!

Recommended: o2 (and I don't work for them!) - their call charges are possibly the lowest, and if on contract you can add a 'bolt-on' to your calling plan which will lower the cost further.

Hope this helps!

Reckon we shall be using hubbies then, O2 and leaving my '3' at home! Thanks for that.

Have just registered with IPIPI.COM for 6p text - bit of a pain to set up but you just use your normal phone & sim. You prepay for credits. Beats a big phone bill.

the biggest mobile phone bill I have ever had was £330 for 1 weeks use That was when I was in Crete - that was with vodafone about 2 years ago...

My suggestion is to use mobiles only for emergencies such as house burning down as pointed out above! Before leaving home arrange rendevouz times with families to be home and on MSN. (Don't forget time differences). We also might send/receive one text home to Son, to check he is home and online, then pay for half an hour or an hour in the internet cafe! Always works out cheaper than using land or mobile phones. And great fun!! Can even check on HT site!

Yes, definately try to just text - alot cheaper! My mobile bill was in the region of £120 and I didn't even feel I had used it that much!!

On o2 with texts included in contract,been told if send a text they will take 4 off me.Does anyone no if its the same if i recieve a text from someone

We're on contract with o2 (500 free texts per month), but we always have to pay 40p for each one sent.
Didn't cost anything to receive them though.