Hi! I’m currently in England but moving to Russia in a couple of months, and I’m interested in buying a Fairphone for use in both countries. I’m a complete technical philistine - never owned a smartphone before - so if I ask a couple of obvious questions, I hope you don’t mind!
Firstly, will the Fairphone work for use in both Russia and England? And if so, given that I’ll be using it mostly in Russia to text/phone Britain, how will roaming charges affect my using it there and here - is that a Fairphone issue or a contract issue? Or if I bought one Russian and one English Sim Card, would that work? In the UK you buy it from the Co-op where you get a Pay Monthly, Pay As You Use or just the handset - does anyone know what the cheapest, easiest contract for predominantly roaming/overseas use would be?
Sorry for so many probably obvious questions, and thanks in advance!
This is a contract issue. Your Fairphone isn’t responsible for your roaming charges, but your provider.
That will probably work. But note, only one SIM card can be used in 3G/4G mode, the other will be in 2G only mode. (Both cards in the 2G network won’t be a problem.)
I think using a local (that means a Russian in Russia) SIM card would be the cheapest.
I’ve used both my FP1 and my FP2 a couple of times in Russia, the FP2 also with a Russian SIM, and never experienced any problems, worked just fine.
You only need to be careful when choosing a provider, as many providers only offer service in certain regions, so when you get your Russian SIM card, make sure the provider operates in all the regions your planning to visit.
Costs for internet and phone calls in Russia is ridiculously cheap, so even if you don’t find a provider for all the regions you want to visit, don’t worry. For a few hundred rubles you’ll get a new SIM.
Thanks to both of you! Looking at contracts I think I’ll buy a Fairphone without a contract and buy two separate UK/Russian sim cards - that seems the best way to go forwards, Russian sims look fairly easy to sort. Thanks for your advice!
Yes, that’s the nice thing about dual SIM, you can have SIMS from 2 countries on board. When traveling in Russia I leave my employer’s SIM inside and change my private for a Russian one, for using Internet. While in many Russian cities and places you will find freely accessible WIFI, it often works rather poor. On the other hand, there’s hardly any Eduroam available in this country, so at many universities for example you are stuck without wifi. So having your own SIM there makes sense, particularly since it is quite cheap!
You may also want to have a look at this side, which could help you to find a proper provider (also when staying in other countries): http://willmyphonework.net/
