Cellphone signal terrible - real problem.

[John.C]

My friend has Lebara. I am on Tesco mobile. I live in the North West of the UK.
When we are both in the Uk the signal is fine.
But when she is in the Philippines.....the line is shocking. I cannot hear her. Going outside (me) improves the signal a tiny bit but not much.

Any ideas at all? (please).
If I get a cheap phone and put a Lebara sim card in it so we have Lebara to Lebara, do you believe that will help?
Or......do you know of a cheap(ish) cellphone, maybe sold in Tesco stores, that has a significant volume boost. Much more than an average non-smart phone??

Thanks.

[tiger31]

My friend has Lebara. I am on Tesco mobile. I live in the North West of the UK.
When we are both in the Uk the signal is fine.
But when she is in the Philippines.....the line is shocking. I cannot hear her. Going outside (me) improves the signal a tiny bit but not much.

Any ideas at all? (please).
If I get a cheap phone and put a Lebara sim card in it so we have Lebara to Lebara, do you believe that will help?
Or......do you know of a cheap(ish) cellphone, maybe sold in Tesco stores, that has a significant volume boost. Much more than an average non-smart phone??

Thanks.

Why can,t you use Skype? At least you can see her too.

[Michael Parnham]

John, your friend when in Philippines should use a Smart sim and you use Lebara in UK then your friend can text you for less than p2 and you can call with your Lebara very cheaply and the signal should be ok.

Tiger suggested Skype. This is fine, but in some parts of the Philippines it's difficult to get a good enough signal. For instance, we can't Skype my wife's family in Siquijor and sometimes there's no cellphone signal either - unless the family go higher up the mountain near where they live!

[blindside]

What I have been using for the last 5 months is, Lycamobile...I've never had any trouble talking to my missus..and if you buy £5 or £10 card, just text... SAVE.. to ..2525 (?) it tells you on the card anyway), calls are then 3 pence per minute !!! to the Philippines (or 4p if you have just started using the Lycamobile cards) but caution, the texts are still 15p per text to Philippines..

[John.C]

Thank you for all the suggestions!

[grahamw48]

Some phones don't support Skype (like my Nokia Windows 'smart' phone). It does support Viber and Whatsapp though...with which you can record free messages.

I believe John.C stated that his phone is not a 'smart' phone anyway ? That would limit its capabilities.

Co-incidentally, the contract on my Virgin phone finishes next week, so I bought one of those 99p Lebara sims to put in the phone, just to see if it is 'unlocked'.

It is !

Good news, as I want to use it in the Phils in 9 days.