“Planet 0” from Beeline will drag MTS roaming subscribers and Megafon in distant countries? (updated)

This year on Habré there were several excellent posts about how you can use roaming abroad at more or less reasonable prices: Roaming in Europe - the Internet and calls , in Cyprus with five sim cards , and the most impressive of them, Roaming Guide 2012 . But they are already outdated, because in November, MTS changed the parameters “Zero without Borders”, and Beeline made an interesting new proposal.

This post is for those who travel to distant countries, because It is there that the cost of calls is completely insane, for example, those entering Canada or Mexico will cost almost 130r / min in Beeline, 150r / min in MTS, 100r / min in Megaphone (for Europe and Asian countries there are some suggestions discussed in the posts above, they are have not changed and are not mentioned here).

MTS: Rise and Limitations in Zero without Borders

On November 6, MTS significantly worsened its roaming offer, raising the AP, imposing a limit of 30 days and slightly reducing the cost per minute :

• Daily AP increased to 25 rubles / day (this is almost 800 rubles / month)
• The first 10min: 0p (during the first 30 days of departure from the Russian Federation)
• Every minute beyond this: 5p / min
• All incoming: 5p / min from the first minute (after 30 days of departure from the Russian Federation)

At the end of 2012, the parameters of the option were degraded even more : now it is allowed to take no more than 200 minutes “for free” per month (all that is above — 5p * min).
')
The restriction on the length of stay is very interesting - after a month of absence of the subscriber in the MTS network , the option parameters change and the free incoming ones are disabled.

Beeline: “Planet Zero” and “Seductive Roaming”

Today the site has a new option " Planet Zero ":

• Subscription fee: 0p
• First 10min of incoming: 19p
• Every minute beyond this: 19p / min
• Outgoing SMS: 10p
• The service is valid for 30 days from the date of connection.

and still has a good “ Seductive roaming ” (figures are rounded):

• Subscription fee: 10p / day (300r / month)
• All incoming: 4p / min from the first minute
• Outgoing SMS: 4p

Megaphone: Option "Far countries"

The members of the forum suggested that in Megaphone there is a similar option " Far countries" :

• Subscription fee: 9 p / day (270 p / month)
• All incoming: 6 r / min from the first minute
• Connection: 30 rubles

As correctly noted in the comments, there is also the tariff and the option “Around the World”, but it is difficult to compare it with the MTS and Beeline proposal:

• a very limited number of countries (and the proposals of MTS and Beeline work in any country)
• not an obvious point - the majority (seemingly more than 90%) of Megaphone subscribers use Light Tariffs (Camel online roaming), and if you dig around well, Megafon still doesn’t have Camel roaming in a considerable number of countries. Previously, there was the service " Advanced International Roaming ", but it could not be activated on light tariffs. This means that the phone in these countries will not even register, and you will not be able to receive SMS. Perhaps now the situation has changed and it will be connected on the lights.

But MegaFon subscribers can buy a local SIM card (in the host country), connect the Multiphone, rent an IP-PBX, connect a multi-phone to it as a SIP trunk, and forward incoming calls through a cheap IP provider like Youmagic to the local SIM. This will be the most interesting, flexible and cheap solution, although it will require effort.

In the dry residue:

Of course, you need to look at any roaming options based on the profile of calls.
But in general terms, today, for those traveling to distant countries (especially for a month or more), the most profitable roaming offers are probably in Beeline.

If you count from the calculation per month (for shorter ones, you can divide the numbers proportionally):

1st month of stay (minimum payment 800r due to AP in MTS), included:

• MTS : 800r AP for “Zero without Borders” gives incoming calls up to 10 minutes each (no more than 200 minutes per month)
• Beeline : 300r AP for Seductive Roaming + 500r for calls will give 125 minutes of incoming calls (approximately 41 pieces of 3-minute calls)
• Megaphone : for 270r, the AP “Far Countries” + 530r for calls will give 88 minutes of incoming calls (approximately 29 pieces of 3-minute calls)
• Beeline : for 0r Planet Zero AP 42 calls up to 10 minutes each

What is more profitable here - depends on the subscriber profile (will 800R pay off in MTS?).

2nd month of stay and on:

• MTS : for 800r AP "Zero without Borders" incoming from the first minute for 5p / min
• Beeline : for 300r AP “Seductive Roaming” incoming will be at 4p / min
• Megaphone : for 270r AP "Far countries" can take incoming for 6p / min
• Beeline : for 0r AP "Planet Zero" 10 min for 19p + after that 19p / min

Here, from, say, 1000r (because of 800r AP in MTS), for calls up to 10 minutes, it will turn out:
MTS: 40 min , Bee: 175 min (Coll. Roaming) and 52 calls (Planet 0), Mega: 121 min

In this case, Beeline is definitely more profitable (especially if there are few calls).

For those traveling more than a month - probably, it is better to forget about MTS and immediately take Beeline (2 SIM cards are not needed, and with a moderate number of calls it can be cheaper than MTS in the first month).

Photo: Mark Matcho