Last week T-Mobile introduced its new price plans for Pay as you Go customers, so that it will now be cheaper to make international calls. The “International Weekends” offer benefits both non British expats living in the UK as well as those UK customers whose friends and family live abroad.
All customers need to do is top up by £10 between Monday and Friday to get another £10 free credit to call and text any country with a starting rate of 5p per minute to international landlines and 15p per text. The credit can also be used for local calls or text messages.
Fred Peron, head of Prepay at T-Mobile said ” Our new international rewards offer makes it much easier for those living temporarily in the UK to use a Pay as you Go contract to keep in touch with family and friends abroad, without worrying about running out of credit”.
The new T-Mobile deal is a strong offer in the competitive market place but calls, as the name International Weekends suggests, are not available on Mondays to Fridays and there are cost implications during this time.
As you would expect, the other major networks offer cheap deals for Pay as you Go customers; Vodafone offer a £15 a month “Super SIM” deal which gives international calls from 5p per min; O2 whose “Your Country SIM” gives 100 international minutes free when users top up £15; and Orange whose “Camel” package provides discounted rates.
It is however worth looking at companies such as Skype, Nimbuzz and Truphone that offer low-cost calls for those with “smartphones” that connect via Wifi.
It can be possible with the right combination of network and phone to make some international mobile to mobile calls for nothing. But beware you may need to “opt in” to a special international tariff from your network to get the lowest charges. If you are making lots of calls it is probably worth the time to research the options in detail.
Mark Sage Blogs 