Hello, i have been here in switzerland for 6 months and have just kept my uk mobile as i don't get charged for recieving texts and i just get charged 3 texts for 1 for sending texts to the uk for a bargain monthly price. (£19) But now i have a few friends in switzerland I need a swiss mobile. does anyone know if I'd be chraged for recieving texts from the uk (which happens quite a lot!) and for sending them? I don't know if it's worth cancelling my uk one and just getting a swiss one, or whether i should just get a prepaid sim for here?! hope that makes some sort of sense! thanks in advance!

ju xx

You won’t be charged for receiving texts (having said that individual contracts can be quite confusing so tis best to read your T&C’s) but your friends will be charged more for sending texts to your UK phone than if you had a Swiss one. For what it is worth, I suggest you get a cheap prepaid sim and then try out to see how much you are spending compared to what you were spending on UK phone, while keeping your contract running in the UK (that is what I have done for the past 12 months). Look at the TOTAL you are paying monthly on both phones and then make a decision whether to get rid of your UK one or not. If you already have a UK contract it might cost you just as much to cancel it as it would to keep paying the 19 quid for the duration of your stay here. Also your friends back in the UK can still send you texts to your UK phone cheaper than they could to a Swiss phone and it is very handy to still have your UK phone and same phone number when you go back for weekends etc.

Good luck with it, the telcos are certainly not in the business of making the decision easy!

i got a prepaid here and have a house phone. i can sms anywhere for ten what do they say, rappen, a text and my incoming texts are free. outside of switz where orange is roaming i have to be a bit more careful but i really only use the phone for sms-ing!

my two centavos!

I have had a UK Vodafone on pre-pay and Swisscom on pre-pay and now am on a Swisscom contract. In all three cases I never got charged extra for sending texts abroad (i.e. sending from my local country to a foreign number; not whilst roaming and then sending texts).

Just before I moved over here, I changed my Monthly UK contract to a Pay As You Go deal. It meant I could keep the same phone number and my UK friends could send me texts that cost them no more than if I were in the UK. It also means I have a UK mobile for when I go back the UK and Pay As You Go costs a lot less than my old contract used to (hardly anything in fact).

Here in Switzerland, I've got a pay as you go phone.

It does mean having two phones, but the UK one gets left at home and checked for messages every so often (it used to be every day, not so much these days....)

I guess it depends on how long you are planning to stay in Switzerland.

I have to travel back to the UK every 2-3 months, so I have kept my UK phone, but changed my monthly plan to a prepaid, so I can still have the same number. They didn't charge me anything for this, because I told them I no longer lived in England.

When I arrived here, I bought a (prepaid) sim card on orangeclick.ch. I have the option to switch to a monthly plan with orange if needed, but for now, it is cheaper for me to stick to what I currently have.

I hope this helps!

p.s I just saw JimmyG's post - looks like we chose the same option!

Me too!
Two prepaid options for going backwards and forwards and recieving texts or some phonecalls (when I am willing to pay the roaming so that the caller can phone me) and one contract phone. I come and go between three "homes"- countries... Weighs my bag down when I need all three together though!