Texting Ireland from the UK

genie

I'm moving to the UK this summer and want to buy a new sim card. Will a UK o2 sim card be the cheapest option as I want to be able to text my brother relatively cheaply back here in Ireland and he is on the O2 Ireland network.

Thanks!

d-j-k

O2 Prepay in the UK have an international "bolt on" ... it costs about £4.99 (one off charge deducted from your balance) but it reduces text charges to Ireland to 10p per message (all networks) (same as their UK fee)

Calls are also substantially cheaper once you subscribe to this bolton.

Check your SIM pack for details or go to their website www.o2.co.uk

They were definitely one of the cheaper options for keeping in touch with ireland by text.

One slightly annoying thing though: O2 UK don't support delivery reports AT ALL! They just don't do them.

Also, if you're phoning home on your mobile it might be worth using some of their other bolt-on options in conjunction with a pre-payed calling card with very cheap rates to ireland.

e.g. you can subscribe to one of their "talkalot" (reduces prices the more you talk) or one of their "O2 home" bolt ons which gives you a really large number of flat-rate mins but only while you are physically in the post-code that you register with them. If you then use a phone card with a normal telephone access number (020 for example) you'll be able to call home for really reasonable rates.

The bolt ons function much the same as O2 Ireland's text bundle service, you either pay a monthly fee or a one off fee that's debited from your prepay credit.

Also, one other thing if you're using prepay in the UK they use "e-top up cards"...
When you buy a top up voucher it's a magentic card.. once you top up with it once that card number is automatically associated with your mobile phone number. Then to top up again all you have to do is hand the card to the retailer, they swipe it thru their till / credit card terminal, key in the amount and it's credited to your phone.

While the system's really cool in many respects it does have one major flaw... occasionally your credit takes hours to appear on your phone.

Try to use it in larger places like supermarkets, boots the chemist, etc.. I found that when I topped up in small shops sometimes it took hours for the credit to appear on my phone due to the fact that their terminals aren't online all of the time.

(meteor used a similar idea for a while "spark card" but seem to have abandoned it for some reason anyone know if it's still around?)

genie

Thanks very much for your reply.

The "bolt on" option for texts sounds reasonablebly priced. 10p per text sounds good.

I don't think I'll actually be ringing the brother's mobile very much, though, it'll be landline or e-mail for that!

RuggieBear

there is an orange pay monthly option which reduces the price of international texts right down....

d-j-k

If you get an O2 prepay pack over there dial 2424 and set up the bolt-ons it explains everything in really good detail albeit with a very snooty accent inherited from BT that doesn't at all fit into the new cool O2 image

(they seem to take up to 24 hours to apply to your account.. so don't start texting until you've confirmation that it's active)

genie

OK, thanks for that!

lomb

the cheapest way to do it by far is buy ur bro a uk pay as u go orange sim card for a couple of quid on ebay and 1 for ur self this wont cost more than a fiver delivered here, insert this into a spare fone he has here, and u can txt his 'uk number' for 3p per text, with no bolt on charge/line rental/contracts/credit checks etc.

thesteve

Or if you're working on a pc, use the web text associated with our irish sim. If it's the same people you text regularly, they'll get used to replying to your UK number....

lomb

thesteve wrote:

Or if you're working on a pc, use the web text associated with our irish sim. If it's the same people you text regularly, they'll get used to replying to your UK number....

HAHA thats cheaper again, yes webtext followed by giving ur friend/family member a uk pay as u go card on orange or t mobile and u using the same network to txt.

also for them to txt u cheaply buy a 02 irish pay as u go simcard, and so u can receive txts on ur other irish number so ul need 2 phones and they will need 2 as well. but with pay as u go fones 'free' and very small these days this isnt any problem.

id go with tmobile actually as the orange offer is valid for 6 months then ur back at 12p stg per txt. tmobile to tmobile txts are 3p stg.

genie

Thanks! I'll look into all of these.

byrnefm

d-j-k wrote:

One slightly annoying thing though: O2 UK don't support delivery reports AT ALL! They just don't do them.

That's odd - when I'm roaming with my O2-IRL card in the UK, I can only roam on O2-UK - and when I send texts on their network, I get delivery confirmations on any I send while roaming on the UK network. I know that's not quite the same as having an O2-UK SIM card but if their network doesn't support delivery reports, how could I get them while I'm on their network? Just curious...

d-j-k

byrnefm wrote:

That's odd - when I'm roaming with my O2-IRL card in the UK, I can only roam on O2-UK - and when I send texts on their network, I get delivery confirmations on any I send while roaming on the UK network. I know that's not quite the same as having an O2-UK SIM card but if their network doesn't support delivery reports, how could I get them while I'm on their network? Just curious...

When you're roaming your SMS messages still go via your home networks message centre. You can even send messages as if you were at home i.e. to 0871234567 rather than +353871234567. You're not actually using O2 UK's Message Centre at all.

lawhec

One slightly annoying thing though: O2 UK don't support delivery reports AT ALL! They just don't do them.

They do, but it uses quite an old method of having to put *0# before the text message, which is rather inconvienent.

Edit: Just checked the prices for texting to Ireland in the UK from a UK Network on Pay As You go...

Vodafone: 24p per message
O2: 20p without bolt-on, 10p with International Talk and Text bolt-on (£4.99 one off payment made from your balance)
Orange: 20p per message
T-Mobile: 20p per message
3 (3G): 25p per message*
Virgin: 20p per message
Fresh: 15p per message

* 3's PAYG offering is Threepay which is quite different to other PAYG in that you only have a limited time to spend on your vouchers.

JTMan

For texting Ireland from the UK ..
The Best option is to go to for O2 UK ONLINE PAYG. With this option you do not have to buy bulk international texts. You get 300 free text messages a month to use(provided you top up by at least £10 every month). If you send an international text O2 UK deducts 2 text messages from your allowance.

For international calls from the UK ..
The Best option is to use an one of the override services. Have a look at this: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1105983163,80958,

lawhec

The Best option is to go to for O2 UK ONLINE PAYG. With this option you do not have to buy bulk international texts. You get 300 free text messages a month to use(provided you top up by at least £10 every month). If you send an international text O2 UK deducts 2 text messages from your allowance.

Incorrect. The 300 free text messages a month are only to other UK mobile users, not to Ireland or any other country.

JTMan

Northern Correspondent wrote:

Incorrect. The 300 free text messages a month are only to other UK mobile users, not to Ireland or any other country.

Your Incorrect They deduct 2 messages from your allowance for international texts . Read 3 posters who confirm this (some say they only deduct 1 message) here : http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=188733&highlight=International+text . A mate of my is on O2 Online PAYG and he says the same.

lawhec

I'm with O2 online contract with 500 texts. If I send an international text they just take 2 texts out of my 500 allowance.

This is the only quote from your link which is for an online contract which is different. IIRC for O2 online for contracts from your text messaging bundle (not in all cases) an international text message sent from the UK counts as two normal text messages, an MMS message sent anywhere(!) counts as four SMS messages while a text sent to a UK mobile whilst you are roaming counts as four normal text messages.

I actually do have an O2 online PAYG Sim card & I just sent a test text to my Meteor Sim card. It's taken 20p out of my balance.

kazzer

Does it cost to receive SMS while roaming? (i.e. with a UK sim here in the republic, or with an irish sim card in the uk)

Thanks

lawhec

kazzer wrote:

Does it cost to receive SMS while roaming? (i.e. with a UK sim here in the republic, or with an irish sim card in the uk)

Thanks

99.999% No.

Belgiantreasure

Hi all,
Just thought I'd drop into this now( maybe dormant) conversation.
I reckon the cheapest is www.fishtext.com it's between 2 and 4 cents a text, and you can text from a pc or your phone. If the person you are texting has the application too, the text is free.
Usefull if it's not included in your free plan, or if your plan restricts you to just Irish texts.
All the best!
Katleen