Bibitel sim-skin: new way to make cheap international calls on your mobile

Bibitel reckons its 'sim-skin' can cut the cost of international calls made on your mobile phone by 98%!

Bibitel is selling a new device called the 'sim-skin'. The company claims that by using the sim-skin, mobile users can call countries including the US, Germany, France, Spain, Australia and India for as little as 1p a minute.

We’ve taken a look at how the sim-skin works and how it compares to your other options for international mobile calls.

The science bit

The sim-skin is different to other providers offering cheap international calls for mobile users: you don’t have to switch sim cards, have a second mobile phone, a different phone number or use a calling card. It’s much cleverer than that.

The sim-skin is basically a very thin sticker. To use it you simply take your normal sim card out of your phone, stick the sim-skin to it and re-insert it into your handset. When you switch the phone back on you’ll have the option to use the sim-skin when making any out of bundle, high cost or international calls.

A key advantage of the sim-skin is that you can keep using your existing mobile network for local and national calls. The sim-skin leaps into action when you make an international call, routing it over a cheaper network.

The sim-skin also realises when you’ve gone abroad and automatically switches into cheap call mode so you can avoid expensive roaming calls.

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Call costs

The following table shows how the sim-skin compares to the main mobile networks’ pay monthly tariffs.

Cost of calling a landline per minute

Alternative options

If you need to make international calls on your mobile there are a handful of other options that can save you money.

Firstly, check if your network has a cheap international tariff that can be bolted on to your existing contract. For example if you’re with O2, for an extra £10 a month you can buy the International Favourites bolt-on. This gives you 3,000 landline minutes and 100 mobile minutes to three of your favourite international numbers. 

If you’re with Vodafone, for £5 a month you can bolt-on Vodafone International which cuts the cost of calling abroad by up to 97%. Calling Australia with Vodafone International costs 5p/minute compared to £1.50 normally.

Another option is using an overseas calls specialist. Providers such as Lebara and Lycamobile offer cheap international calls, typically targeting the UK's immigrant population.

These operators offer sim-only deals so you’ll need to switch over the sim in your phone to benefit from low rates. They’re pretty cheap – calling a landline in Australia or Mexico costs just 1p/minute with Lycamobile.

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Use the internet

Another option is to use Wi-Fi to make international calls on your mobile.

If you and the person you’re calling both have Skype, you can call them for free wherever they are. If they don’t have Skype you can still call them using Skype and it will much cheaper than using your mobile in the normal way.

Alternatively you can download the Rebtel app, which works with your phone’s built-in dialler and automatically connects all your international calls with Rebtel.

It’s a bit fiddly though: you call Rebtel on a local number (included in call bundles) and it then routes your call over the internet. The person you’re calling will be sent a message asking them to call a local number – when they do you’ll be connected to one another with both of you just paying local rates for the call.

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