Best way for New Yorker to have a cell phone when in London for a week?
October 7, 2013 2:39 PM   Subscribe

I'm going to London from November 1st to November 7th and I want to be able to make and receive a few phone calls...

but texting/data is not necessary. I live in New York and have an incompatible Android phone. Verizon is my provider.

I can also Skype but that may not always be a possibility because the person at the other end is not always at a computer.

I just called Verizon and here is what they'll do: For $20 shipping both ways, they'll send me a phone. Then it costs $5.00 a month, pro-rated, so it'll cost me about a dollar for the week. After this $21 outlay it will cost me 99 cents a minute to talk to the US with the phone they'll send me.

This doesn't sound like a bad deal, but I've never done this before, so I'm asking: is there any better deal out there for having a phone to call the US with in London for six days?
posted by DMelanogaster to Technology (6 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
There may be cheaper ways to do it, but you can get this phone for £10 with an "International SIM", which when you put £10 of credit on gives you 4p/min calls to the US. £20 is about $32, so this saves you money if you think you'll call people for more than 11 minutes over the week.

There are mobile phone shops on most high streets such as Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U who stock phones/SIMs from all the major networks - if you walk into one of them and explain your situation ("I want the cheapest possible phone that will let me call the US very cheaply") they should be able to find you a similar or better deal.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:01 PM on October 7, 2013 [2 favorites]


If your issue is the other person not being at a computer, you can buy Skype credit and call them on their cell or landline, it should be 2.3c/minute plus a connection fee.
posted by Snazzy67 at 3:19 PM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Lebara Mobile has incredibly cheap calling rates and is available practically everywhere except Heathrow Airport.

Phone wise, you can pick up a new basic phone if you're not too picky for as little as $16 by going to almost any large supermarket or phone shop in London. You can also get a used phone for any network at CEX, which is on most high streets and in many shopping centers.
posted by parmanparman at 12:41 AM on October 8, 2013


if you have Skype on your phone it might be cheaper to use wifi and call using Skype.
posted by majortom1981 at 4:48 AM on October 8, 2013


Response by poster: I'm going to modify my question -- I want to have my phone in hand before I go to London. I will not be in a position to go phone shopping once I'm there.

So far it seems that if I want to call phone-to-phone the Verizon deal is the easiest way to do this.
posted by DMelanogaster at 6:40 AM on October 8, 2013


You can leave someone a text message on skype if they're not at their computer.
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:58 AM on October 10, 2013


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