General Chat

Do any of you clever people out there know anything about mobile phones. My son is working in Spain and has just texted me his new number but I can't get through, is there a code I should be using or should I leave out the first couple of numbers, the number doesn't start with a zero. If anyone could help me I would be really grateful. Sue

i'm not sure i don't think so, my sons girlfirend was out there a couple of weeks ago and she /he didn't have to. but word of warning you both get charged for the call. sandra

hi sue if i remember rightly you have to put 44 instead of the 0 at the beginning of the number i had to do this when i was in munich last year to phone the kiddies susie

Are you allowed to dial continental calls on your phone Sue. Sometimes you have to notify the Mobil Company that you want to dial UK and overseas numbers. Lin

I think I've cracked it, I think the code is 0034. Thanks everyone for your help. Sue

Hi Sue The 0034 number means that your son has got a phone with a spanish sim-card. Just be careful because they are more expensive to send messages to. My daughter is also in Spain doing a uni course. She has an old phone with a british sim card, which most of her friends can text her free, and I pay 12p per message. She uses her spanish phone to text her friends in Spain, (it costs me 24p per message). Hope this helps Maggy

Hi Sue, Maggie's got this about right. 0034 is the international code for Spain, if you're calling from GB, but you pay the international rate. If I was calling a friend in Spain who had an English mobile, I would simply dial their ordinary number without a 0034 prefix. However, if I was in Spain with my own English mobile, I would have to prefix 0044 (for UK) if I was calling a friend in GB (with or without mobile). My wife and I each got a Spanish mobile when we started going out there regularly, certainly saves on the local call costs! Different problem when I visited Uganda last spring for my children's charity. Wife asked me to call her each evening. eventually £500 for about 15 minutes each night for a fortnight!!! She suggested I bought a laptop and e-mail her in future, which I've done. Now the only problem is to find a local Uganda ISP who can supply me with a card, so I can send e-mails at the local rate (as in GB), otherwise I will end up paying high international charges anyway! Oh what fun!!!! (groan) Philip

Philip, Hubby thinks our phone bills are high, I will show him your message, then perhaps he will stop moaning £500 wow. Sue

Sue, This was exceptional, so don't read too much into it. The cost seemed to vary considerably from night to night, one night 20 minutes cost £40 - gulp!! The problem is that you don't know the actual cost until you've returned to GB and the next bill comes in! Anyway, as I said, I'm exploring alternatives. I found that Vodafone, my mobile supplier, also sells a computer access card for about £150 one off. This is fine for, say, businessmen who are constantly online in the course of their travel in GB, as it saves them having to connect to a landline access point at home, office, or in an internet cafe. However, the problem in a place like Uganda remains the same. I can't plug my laptop into the landline point in the charity's office, as they quite sensibly have put an international bar on it. They access the internet at a local cheap rate, just as we do here. However, as things are, I have to dial my ISP in GB to get online. I could use my mobile phone with its red-eye(?) to act as a connection point, but the cost would still be at the full international rate. I really need to find out id there's a local ISP in Kampala who supply computer cards like Vodafone's, then I'll be in business. Otherwise..... The worst thing is that the IT industry never tell you what you don't know, and it's like sweating blood out of a stone, even if they do know themselves, which they don't most of the time! Aarghhh..... Philip

Philip, The I.T. industry won't tell you anything because they want your money, all the time you don't know you are increasing their profits. Sue