As things are quite tight money-wise with my Suzie (partly because of her Dad passing away recently) I'm wondering if there is any way that i can pay for her SMS messages from her mobile in Phils to mine in UK? Could I buy a certain amount of them or pay so much a month for just her messages to me here in the UK?
Thanks for any help!
hi there,
better aske her to send you a roaming sim which would cost her 1 peso per text message.. All you got to do is buy a cheap fone for your roaming.. Thats what i did for my fiance cos it costs ne a lot to send him messages..
hope it helps....
use www.chikka dot com
it's free when you send text messages from Chikka to her mobile and you can also use your paypal account to send her mobile credits.
Globe Autoload and Smart eLoad can be bought here and loaded remotely to the Philippines phone.Originally Posted by South-east boy
I have used http://www.phonecards.moonfruit.com/ for many years now, occasionally a couple of hicups but generally they are very good, it's not cheap though, five pounds for 300 peso load.
Problem is she will still be paying 20 peso a text to txt you here. Also if you have a roaming Philippines SIM here you will be paying heavily to reply although she will get cheap txt to you.
If you have a laptop you can buy a Smart Plug n Talk device which will give you 1 peso txt in both directions, the major inconvenience being that you have to have your laptop open all the time.
http://filipinaroses.com/sh...ad.php?t=18482
Jim
The way my wife does it is she normally leaves the sim in a spare mobile and uses chikka to send messages. She only used the smart device when the sim no longer roams (due to lack of credit), she wants to send load, or she has hit her limit on chikka.
I couldn't get the link above to work? Will try on my PC at home later.
I don't have a latop, but do have an iPhone with which the Internet works great on (& is what I'm writing this on now). Would it work on this as well as a laptop?
It won't work on a iphone (its a USB device) it will only work on window PCs (probably XP or later) with a USB port and a internet connection.
Have a look at www.pinoycards.co.uk
The Globe or Smart Autoload.
send her money then ask her to buy txtwise card so cheap 5 pence or 5 pesos from PI to UK, that availble to SM store
I hope you dont mind but when i used chikka that cost to my BF credit, chikka from PI isnt advisable to use I will go for abby advice ask her to buy sim from PI and registered it as roaming ask her to send it in UK and that was very very cheap peso or 1p
Sorry I copied it over a remote connection must have missed something.
http://filipinaroses.com/showthread.php?t=18482
darren-b is correct it will only work on a windows laptop or PC sorry.
Jim
Yep that's the same site as http://www.phonecards.moonfruit.com/
They're ok.
Jim
I use this company when loading up my wife's smart sim.
http://www.plugntalkload.com/
They are actually a bit cheaper - ~£4.34 ($7.19) instead of £5 for PHP300 load. They also sell smaller amounts.
http://www.callingnow.co.uk/default.asp/p=1
That is a site where u can buy Philippines sim already roamed so she can send u text and she doesn't need to send it all the way from Philippines, credit for her sim so she can text u, smart plug n talk so u can send text to her for 1 peso only, or phone her from PC, there's also video guide in there of how u use it. hope it helps
Thanks for the help everyone! So if I get a cheap mobile for the roaming sim, can it be a UK mobile? And if so, does it have to be unlocked to all networks or can it be any network? Sorry, am a bit of a newb with all this stuff!
A UK mobile will be fine, but it has to be unlocked.
That's good to know, just had a look and via Paypal they charge 4.52 for PHP300 load still better than the site I use.
I'll give it a try on payday and see how quick they are at loading the phone, I have remote online access to all our phone accounts which is what I really like about Smart.
Jim
The first time they did request email confirmation which slowed it down, though since then they have been very quick.
Just bought an unlocked phone, and looking at the roaming sims-this one is a Smart one, but what does this mean?!: "P10 lang per text mula abroad to the Philippines"
10 pesos to text from here to the philippines
God grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people i had to kill because they pissed me off.
10 pesos to text from here to the philippines
Thanks, just not heard of lang or mula before!
Thanks, just not heard of lang or mula before!
God grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people i had to kill because they pissed me off.
My wife uses Chikka text all the time to send texts to Phils, and also has a roaming sim card in an unlocked UK phone here in the UK for receiving too.
My wife does the same. Plus she has a smart plug n talk device that lets her send messages for 1 or 2 pesos when she can't use Chikka, and allows her to send load much cheaper than Chikka.
The thing is, is that it isn't actually as cheap as 10 pesos per text, as for 200 pesos you'll get 20 texts, but the 200 load costs £10. If there are 70 pesos per pound, really if you're paying £10 you should get a 700 pesos load, so you can see how much money they'll make! So £10 for the 20 texts you'll get works out at 50p per text or around 35 pesos per text.
Edit!: That's with the sim card, with the loads it's:
P200 (doesn't say how long valid for) x3 -£10
P300 valid for 75 days -£4.80
P500 valid for 120 days -£7.50
P1000 valid for 120 days -£14
I don't know if I'm being thick, but I now have an unlocked phone and also now have the Smart sim card, but what is my phone no./where do I find it/how do I get one?!
Nmber is top right of the reverse side of the Smart card that the actual sim presses out of. You need need to decipher the actual number slightly. Effectively you need the last 9 digits -preceded by +639
or google your phone model for the key sequence that will tell you your number - it varies by phone model.
Bad news is that the sim may need to have been activated for roaming in PI - but I forgot to do that last week & it is still worked in Hong Kong, China & now in UK.
my phone number starts in 0921, so what no should she start with when sending me a message? Or will it work if I send her a message and she relies to it?
Edit: Actually, I think I've sussed it now as I think the '9' is the end part of the '639', so it's 0063, then the rest of my number after that. Annoyingly, everytime I send a text, the phone freezes/locks up and you can't do anthing but take the battery out, then start up the phone again! Then I find that the message hasn'r gone or been saved, so I have to type it all again, click send and it freezes all over again! Grgghh!
hmmm.. nice info....
i am currently using chikka to send text to my family in pinas... i ask them to answer me to my smart roaming... and once in a while to my chikka number (which costs 2.50 pesos for them)..
as for calling the landline/cellphone in pinas, i am hoping to use skype... anyone done that? is it good?
My experience of using Skype for calls to RP from The UK is very poor. Landlines in Manila are OK about 50% of the time. Calls to mobiles are a waste of money. Expensive as well 14.1p + VAT per minute.
What is particularly frustrating is that calling the same numbers from Skype when I'm in Asia (usually HK or SG but even China) the call quality is perfect.
That said I also have one TalkTalk line & that isn't much better than Skype. It is clearly a routing issue with the calls going a strange path in order to get the cheapest rate for the telephone company.
The best calls I get to RP are Skype to Skype! Even conference calls are good.
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