You are probably aware that there is such a thing as an international SIM for mobile phones. There are numerous offers on Google, so I will not list them here.

However, it is a bit of a hassle to read through all the small print, so I was wondering if anyone had recommendations or warnings they would like to share.

Personally I would like an International SIM for a second mobile with the following features:
-Receive calls in many countries without having to pay roaming fees.
-Receive SMS free.
-Have a permanent contact number (where it does not cost a mint to receive calls).

Desireable features of such a product would be:
-No expiry date for the SIM or credit (so I don't suddenly go on holiday to find my card has expired).
-Low initial cost (some of the offers out there are fairly exhorbitant reaching into $100s of dollars for a SIM! There seem to be offers for about $20 too).
-Swiss number (so it is also reachable cheaply from within Switzerland).
-US number (since these are reachable cheaply worldwide)

Other factors:
-Facebook does not send free SMS alerts to Swiss numbers, so a UK number would also be useful.

I apologise if this has been covered before, I could not find it by searching, but I think recommendations for cheap / free roaming could be of use to many people on this forum. Reading the brochure and trying the product itself often leave very different impressions.

Anyone?