International Sim?

[NotQuiteCockney]

We're off to Canada for 3 weeks. I'm debating buying a Canadian sim, or an international sim, and am not sure which one to get.

I could use an international one in Yurp etc, which could be useful. They're cheaper than the Canadian ones, too. But then people calling me would have to call some weird country, rather than just calling a Canadian number. But I wouldn't have to pay for incoming calls at all. Sending sms would be about 24p. I'd have to top up online.

The Canadian one would mean Canadians could call me, but in Canada mobiles have regular numbers, and then you pay to receive calls. I'm also worried the sim would stop working between one annual trip and the next.

Any ideas?

i doubt the sim would stop working - I have a spanish one and a uk one and use both very intermittently. they both still work.

but the international one sounds a bit of a con - aren't some uk phones 24p to send an sms from abroad? I know some are 50p or £1 but I also know they vary a lot. plus the prices are supposedly coming down because of some eu declaration or something.

The gotcha for me is, receiving calls costs a bomb on my UK number when I'm in Canada. As does receiving smses, I think. I'll check the SMS receive and send costs for the Canadian sims ...

Hmm, they charge $.15 per sms, which is a lot cheaper. No charge to receive.

Ha, but if you don't put more money on it within 30 days, it will stop working. And you don't get to keep any credit unless you top up regularly.

But it costs $69 and has $30 of credit, which is semi-tempting. I'll have to think about the numbers. It's probably more sensible to just use my UK sim.