½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

What were you using before, a UK mobile phone that has stoped working?

@kaththomas700

You can get Whatsapp and Messenger apps for your laptop in the mean time.

Yes but in the past they've sent me a warning type  message.  Husband has been on line in the UK and says there's no promlem.  I'm going to try the age old thing I'll turn it off and turn it on again.

Well I turned it off and turned it on again and it worked.  But I still need to get a Bulgarian phone to stop this happening again.

No need to change the phone just get a contract with one of the Bulgarian phone operators and insert the new SIM card and your good to go

Yettlle and Viacom are good

The UK roaming should keep working for a while, at least a month, but once the phone company sees all your usage is outside the UK, they most likely will stop the service. To decide which to go with, maybe look at which service name shows on your phone when you have the most bars of signal as like in the UK different companies may offer better signal in different areas. I see in my village Yettel has better signal, but it might be the other way around in your village.

You'll probably need to be somewhere with Bulgarian Wi Fi you can use in order to activate the Bg SIM. I've tried twice with Yettel cards to activate it as a second SIM in my phone and not been successful. They insist I am in the UK, I guess because I'm connected to the internet via my UK SIM. But the Yettel SIM wouldn't work on its own when I took the UK SIM out, because it wasn't activated yet. One of those frustrating circular situations.

Then when I was somewhere with WiFI and intended to get the card activated I had other phone issues that distracted me and I lost the Yettel SIM. But that's another story.

Yettle is the system Tesco uses here and I already have Bulgarian WiFi. I've sent a message to my neighbours daughter to ask which system is best for the village.

If I get a Bulgarian SIM can I still use my old UK phone number?

No, it will have a new number. You won't be able to move your UK number.

She replied that it depends on the carrier but I don't know what she means.

Here are links to the coverage maps for Viacom and Yettel. If you look up your town/village it will show you the strength of signal you should get, 4g etc do you can make a decision based on that.

Thank you PlovdivEd

@kaththomas700 I think she means that some services will transfer the number and some won't.

@kaththomas700.

I've had this problem with my UK phone too - the signal is there for a bit, then just cuts off, especially in the countryside. In cities it's okay. So I suspect you're in a village, away from a cell tower.

As for Bulgarian mobile phone suppliers, there are basically three...   A1, Vivacom and Yettel.  They're all pretty much like for like. I'm with Vivacom for my two mobiles and an Internet / TV package I've got for our Airbnb apartment. Total cost of my two phones and tv/Internet is £46.50 / month, which is unlimited data and a top end phone.

You should be able to get a reasonable phone, with unlimited data for around £22 / month.

Be warned, they will try and sell you things that you don't need like 53 inch tellies, extra tablets and extra phones - firmly say no, if you don't want them!

Most expensive towns have outlets for all three suppliers.

Thank you for the heads up. I already have the internet which is unlimited and costs me 250lev a year. But I don't have a TV just an internet radio but I'm sure that , that will change when husband is free to join me here. Someone else has mentioned A1

Which provider do you use for your internet, Kath?

If your phone is a dual SIM, you can keep and still use your UK number and also have a new Bulgarian number with your new SIM. If you haven't, you may consider buying a phone that supports this. You won't need a monthly contract phone & can just buy more credit on your BG SIM as needed. If you mainly use your phone within WiFi for WhatsApp etc you can still use this,  yet also have a Bulgarian number, that is required by courier companies & all other industries / personnel within Bulgaria. The added bonus is that you don't need to carry two phones around with you! I hope that makes sense.

To use a uk number after a period of time, do you sill have to be a uk resident.

I would have thought that a uk based mobile operator would consider you no longer a uk resident if you used the uk number abroad after a certain time period.

Any methods to get around this possible issue as I have both uk and bulgarian sims in dual sim phone.

@mickg

I have retained my UK SIM & number for 11years without any issues from my mobile provider 02, it's a pay as you go, so I rarely top it up as I generally use my phone only whilst in a WiFi area, but whenever I return to the UK, it's good to go and actually, I use the minimal monthly data as back up, when the electric supply is interrupted in Bulgaria.