Around the World
Roaming suggestions for africa (among other locations)
In the US, we use VZW and internationally he uses tmo.
Rates vary from .99/min to 4.99 typically - but I'd like to know if anyone has any recommendations for carriers that service a good chunk of these areas a bit cheaper.
If it's not much difference, we probably don't want to juggle a 3rd phone - if it's significant - we might.
Last roaming bill was about $900 - probably just th cost of doing business - but hey - if I can shave off $500 a month and be a big hero it would be just mahvelous...
I'm sure he doesn't go to every one of them
Basically, world wide coffee sources and markets.
Personally, I have United Mobile and GlobalSim. And have used both extensively. Just recently came back from a 3 country trip where I spent most of the time in Nigeria. Both of them worked flawlessly, especially the Globalsim. Another new comer is Yackie MObile...but they are very new and are experiencing some issue sright now.
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/ »
His african jaunts are subsaharan - gsm is iffy in places and if he ends up carrying a thrid phone, it should be one that will *always* work.
Iridium has $0.99/min rates depending on the plan . Apparently, you get royally hosed calling *to* the sat phone - but it would be cheaper calling for outgoing calls and we could reach him if it were critical.
So at $0.99 a minute, he would have to use 900 minutes to get to that $900 mark. I'm sure he used less than that last time if the rates topped out at $4.99. Go be a hero now!
www.globalstar.com
For S/A, I even considered a movistar account, since they seem to have roaming agreements thoughout the region, then realized that no option short of carrying a dozen phones is really going to impact the per min rate a whole lot.