Re: The Sims 3 Wii Iso Europe
Nayra Wellinghoff
I have a Rogers plan and iPhone. I'll be in Europe for 18 days and plan on buying in advance an esim for Europe (probably one with data as well as a European number so I can call while in Europe). 1) I'd still like to be able to check texts etc while in Europe so can I check texts with my Rogers sim while I am in Airplane Mode and not have roaming charges? 2) Can I only send/receive imessages or can I also get regular texts? 3) I've found in Mexico not all of my texts go to friends back in Canada until I land back in Canada and I assume that is because they are not on iphones? 4) If I am on my esim, can I put the phone in airplane mode then switch to my Rogers sim and will the phone stay in airplane mode or does it default to normal mode when the phone switches sims? 5) If someone calls me on my Canadian number, I don't answer but my voicemail take a message, will that trigger roaming charges and is there anyway I can retrieve the voice message while in Europe and not trigger roaming charges? I'd rather not physically remove the Rogers sim card as then I can't check anything from back home on that number but I am concerned of getting hit with daily $15 roaming charges as I read there are many ways I can still trigger roaming charges even if I turn off roaming and it can be very confusing trying to figure this all out! Thanks in advance for your help.
because physically removing it guarantees that it wont connect to the network, while keeping it in the phone there have been reports of people accidentally toggling it on or a software setting turning it on or a child turning it on or something else accidentally turning it on, accidents do happen, so this is a sure way to avoid this.
1. If you are in Airplane mode, you will only be able to send/receive iMessages. Any texts or calls will not be available to you in Airplane mode. Make sure you enable airplane mode before leaving Canada.
4. When you are in Airplane mode the Rogers SIM doesn't matter I don't know about switching SIMs. someone else will need to provide that answer. I'm also not sure if you can enable Airplane mode on each of the two different SIMs, or whether that affects both.
5. No, not unless your callers call you on the European number. Edit. I have "Home and Away Voicemail" on my Home Phone. This allows me to get voicemails via e-mail left on my Home Phone. If necessary, I then contact the caller via e-mail or otherwise. I don't know if such a thing exists for cell phones.
Thank you for your reply. I may have misunderstood having 2 sims on the phone at once (one physical Rogers and 1 european esim) but I thought that when you switch over on the iphone to the esim the Rogers sim is disabled and would not be functional even when the phone is off airplane mode (on the esim). Is this incorrect?
Thank you again for your time. If they can be active at the same time, can you inactivate 1 as well so only 1 is active? Ie. Have the Euro esim active and the Rogers psim inactive. Then selectively activate the psim when on wifi to check imessages etc then when done inactivate it.
If I have my iphone 14 settings toggled to "off" on the Rogers sim and "on" on the european local network esim, is that enough to avoid Roam Like Home charges? Like, is toggling it to "off" effectively the same as physically removing it from the device?
Yes thank you I saw that but I wanted to avoid having to remove the card, since it is tiny and easy to misplace. I don't quite understand why toggling the card to "off", meaning it is not in use, would require the extra step of removing it. And obviously I can't be in airplane mode if I am using an e-sim. Thank you for your input.
I regularly travel to Europe (Germany, Poland, France, Switzerland). Every time that I arrive in a country, I buy a cheap prepaid SIM card. The problem is that all these cheap SIMs have a short inactive life, due to their pay-as-you-go nature. For example, most of them will die after 3 months of inactivity, and it is almost impossible to reactivate them.
For instance, I travel approximately once a year to Europe. Every time, I should email my friends that next week I will be in Germany, and after arrival I will text you my new number to reach me. I wish to have a permanent German mobile number, as I can email them that next week I will be in Germany and you can reach me at my German number (which is already in your phonebook).
Although it varies from network provider to network provider, from my experience, many base it on how much credit you buy at a time. For example, if you buy a $30 top-up, that credit might only be valid for 30 days, however, if you top-up for $100, that credit might be valid for up to 1 year.
In Italy IIRC most of the providers maintain the SIM card active for 11 months or one year after last activity. According to this (Italian) webpage, many providers have a 12 months expiration period. CoopVoce's SIM has a validity of 24 months, though in the last month you can only receive calls. Wind, for instance, deactivates it after 12 months but maintains the number available for reactivation for another 12 months.
M-Budget Mobile's prepaid card expires only after 12 months, after which you can reactivate it (and get back all your credit) in the following 6 months by calling their hotline. So you have a total of 18 months before your number is disabled. You can find this information on their FAQ under "Wie lange ist mein Guthaben gltig?".
I was never aware of that rule before I looked it up, but I've had an old phone with one of their SIM-cards for years as travel backup and I use it approximatively once a year. I always wondered why it never got deactivated.
T-Mobile in the Netherlands at least keeps your prepaid card active for 6 months after last use (though special discount rates and things like that usually have to be used up faster than that). That's the longest I know about.
Use there can mean using the card or adding credit to it (which you can do through their website).
You might check if the latter applies also to whatever card you have now. Of course if you just need to send a text message once every 2-3 months to keep the card active, and the card allows roaming to your current location, that's also an option. Just mark it in your calendar :)
I had one of these never ending sims, for a while. It was even their marketing trick some years ago to convince people to change to their offers. However, they just got merged into one the majors, who suddenly changed their regulations and conditions and because of this I lost my prepaid number.
Another solution might be found in VOIP. There are different providers who offer you a VOIP number. The benefit of such a number is that with a German phone number you might even be available in your own country, as lang as you have access to the Internet. I am a customer of nomado.eu who do offer german numbers.. Normaly voip numbers are landline numbers, however apps exist to use those numbers on your smartphone. Nomado, for example has an app available.
Whilst on holiday to Slovakia I bought a prepaid (T-mobile) sim card just like you and although the official documentation said that it would expire after 3 months, when I arrived at the shop a year later they just said that when I topped it up it would re-activate again and that that was standard procedure. I have no idea in which other nations or which other providers this is the case, but it's definitely worth checking.
In Germany, Fonic (and Lidl Mobile, which is basically the same product under a different branding, but cheaper) offer prepaid cards with unlimited validity and reasonable data packages that can be booked via SMS or online.
They both use the O2 network, which is a bit congested in crowded areas as far as mobile data is concerned, but if you're mainly using it for calls and light smartphone data usage, you're probably going to be fine.
Update (2015-01-23): Unfortunately, Lidl has switched operators for their product (they now use Vodafone's network). Since then, the 5GB data package is no longer available for the generic "voice" SIM. It can only be enabled on the "data" SIM that is only sold together with a USB 3G modem.
There are two companies you can buy an international sim card.Its also a pay-as-you-go service without any contract but it does not expire and it does not rely on roaming.What is more, you can have the same number EVERYWHERE. You can check what they charge and decide. Its not very cheap but its ideal for those that travel regularly like you do.
Wait a little longer. Because Neelie Kroes (European commissioner) has a single rate for whole europe as a keypoint.The EU works towards roaming free europe by 15 december 2015. (source -europarlement-stemt-in-met-afschaffen-roaming/)
My German T-Mobile was active many months after I've stopped to load it. There's no information how long it is to be active... I'm using also Lebara for foreign calls, last time I've loaded it over a half year ago, I still use it (one few-minutes call to Poland costs about 25 cents...) and it's still active. I can't say if it's permanently, but there's no information that I must load it now. I suppose, as long as you have some euro on it, you can use it.
There is, however, no clear information under which criteria the number will be disabled. Surery, at least in case of T-Mobile, a few months without turning phone on is not enough to deactivate the card.
In Poland, prepaids have limited time after loading, and afterwards you must buy minutes to prolong the number, but Play is active 1 year after loading for at least 10 PLN (2,5 EUR). It's almost no-cost to keep the number active. It doesn't matter if you turn the phone with the card on or not in that period!
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