Can I buy a temporary SIM in Sweden?

June 22, 2007 2:34 AM

Going on holiday to Sweden tomorrow, and I've lost my mobile. What are my options?

I'm off on holiday to Stockholm tomorrow, and somehow, in the course of last night, I lost my phone. It would be really useful to have a phone for the holiday. I still have a couple of old handsets around, so I was thinking that I would get a sim. I'm coming from the UK.

1. Are UK handsets useable in sweden. I presume they are, GSM and so forth, but worth checking.
2. Is it possible to buy a sim card in Stockholm, and how much would this cost.
3. Is there a economical way of buying a temporary sim card here in london which would work in Sweden.

Thanks for any help.

posted by Touchstone to travel & transportation (6 comments total)

1) I can confirm that Sweden mobile network use the GSM system

2) Most definitely yes - no idea about the cost

Since Sweden is home to Ericsson and neigbouring Finland is home to Nokia, Sweden is a very mobile country, you should be able to find a way to stay connected.

My main advice would be : wait until you're in sweden to buy your sim card.
posted by Baud at 2:44 AM on June 22, 2007

1) Yes, assuming it's unlocked (which I assume it is). Bring any of your old GSM handsets.
2) Yes. Here's the list of all the GSM phone operators in Sweden, so you can check out their websites.
3) I'm not British or Swedish, but this seems like it would be more of a hassle than it would be worth; there are a bunch of companies in Sweden and you can pick up a SIM and credit anywhere, from convenience stores to airports and train stations.

Here's a thread on a forum of frequent fliers who discussed the same thing a few weeks ago, coming to the same conclusions. Looks like 100 SEK (about £8) will get you a card and 100 SEK of credit. Here's the website (I think) for one of these deals, but in Swedish.
posted by mdonley at 2:51 AM on June 22, 2007

I picked up a sim for £5 and a phone for about £20 from Virgin Mobile. It's a bottom of the range Nokia 1112 and works fine in Europe/Asia.
posted by poissonrouge at 3:01 AM on June 22, 2007

Like Baud and mdonley say, you'd be better off buying a prepaid SIM-card (kontantkort) & some minutes in Stockholm. The three best-established networks are Telia, Tele-2/Comviq and Telenor.
posted by misteraitch at 3:42 AM on June 22, 2007

I meant to add that 100SEK sounds about right for the card. I work for Telenor, but can't remember the prices exactly. You should note, however, that it's a major holiday in Sweden tomorrow, and a lot of places will be closed, & your shopping opportunities limited.
posted by misteraitch at 3:48 AM on June 22, 2007

To add on to what others have said previously, yes you can buy a SIM card and use it with one of your existing phones in Sweden, provided that:

1. It is a GSM phone (since you're in the UK and know about SIMs the obvious assumption is yes, it is GSM)

2. It supports the frequencies that the Swedish telecoms use. All of the Swedish telecoms I checked on T-Mobile's page (link, TeliaSonera, Tele2Sweden, and Telenor) use the 900 or 1800 frequencies, which are the most popular ones in Europe. Chances are that your UK phone supports one of if not both of these frequencies, likely worst case scenario is that your phone is single band (or that it's so old that you have to manually select bands- ugh) and will work in some areas but not everywhere.

3. The phone is unlocked. If you get a handset from a carrier (like T-Mobile, Orange, Vodaphone, etc...) they will sometimes "lock" the handset to their network, meaning that you can only use a Vodaphone SIM card in a phone supplied by Vodaphone until they unlock it. Locking phones is a lot more prevalent in the US than in the UK and phones can be unlocked by entering a numeric code via the menu; in many cases if the phone is locked by the carrier, you can contact them to request an unlock code (note: they're a lot more likely to do this if you're a current customer). otherwise there are shops that can unlock phones for a small fee.

I would recommend finiding out now if the phone is unlocked and supports the necessary bands (can google the phone model to find out) and, if both are true, get a SIM card when you're in Sweden. If you have to make calls in Sweden to Sweden, you'll be charged local rates, whereas if you have to call the UK you'll pay roaming rates or international dialing rates whether the SIM card is local or UKish.
posted by Challahtronix at 7:37 AM on June 22, 2007