I'll add a little.. Based on what I know about the UK and Virgin.. I plan a short vacation
to Scotland.. and will use the phone locally daily to friends in the UK,, maybe a couple
times a week to call the USA.  The USA inbound calls will be limited to close
friends/relatives for emergencies..

If you are a frequent EU visitor and/or a heavy business phone user,, your requirements
may be different.

The Virgin 'top-up' plan has:
1)all incoming calls are free to you,, including out of country..
2)the caller uses what ever rate they have on their phones... I have a plan with
BellSouth(wire) to call my daughter in Australia at .12$US,,
3)your US SIM maybe more expensive that the EU SIM for long distance.. The Virgin plan is
20p or about .30$US a minute to the USA, Canada, Australia & New Zealand ,, not bad??
4)unless you are bound to something?? the games with call forwarding are expensive, and I
think they aren't warranted... If your friends need to talk to you 10-15 times a day,, let
them eat the costs,, not your job... If it's business,, let your boss eat the costs...
5)my understanding of roaming is,, if you have a UK SIM,, England, Scotland, Ireland are
all local,, with a EU SIM just about all of the EU is local...
6)My kids have friends that travel to Eastern EU a couple times a year,, they just keep
toping of their card when they land, been using the same card for years..
7)Phones,, Cingular has only one phone, V551 that is truly a Quad ban world phone,, I
didn't want Blue anything, a camera, games, email, slice, post-it messages, IM or .....
JUST A PHONE,, so I purchased a used T68i on ebay. I will leave my Cingular phone at
home..
8)I also purchased a Virgin SIM on ebay,, plugged it in and it linked to T-mobile(the
virgin us), called Virgin support(789) and talked for 30 minutes,, c-following,, all is
fine..
9)EU cellphone to cellphone cross network calls are not cheep,, Virgin is 35P or about
.70$US a minute,, about the cheapest.. Within Virgin and to land lines, .10$US a minute..

NOW there are some issue(s) with Virgin,,, They require a UK address, wire phone #, and a
UK credit card for registration.. Not very worldly,, I used a friends home data to get
by.. AND I chewed their butts for 30 minutes.. Net Net,, I can't 'top-up' until I arrive
in the UK,,, I'll do it at Heathrow in one of the kiosk on the concourse..

Bout' covers it...
Jim
An Old Parrot Head
In The Conch Republic
Just South of Reality