NancyU

Does anyone have any info they can share on where (if possible) you can rent a cell phone in Egypt that will work from Alex to Aswan. I am going to be in Egypt for the month of March with Cairo being my "home" base. But my cell phone here in the States will not work over in Egypt. I appreciate any info anyone can share. ( I am not staying in a 4 or 5 star hotel so not sure they would rent a phone to someone not staying at their hotel)

RAG1011

If you travel much, buy a phone and you can use it just about anywhere in the world except the U.S. It needs to be a gsm phone with the right bandwidth for the frequencies they use for their cell service. I bought one on ebay a few years ago before going to London, and have used it in France,Spain,South Africa,Kenya, Germany, and Egypt. You need to buy a sim card from a cellular provider in the country you're in ( in Egypt I used mobinil. You can buy the card in the Cairo airport and it will have a few pounds worth of service on it. Just purchase more prepaid airtime depending on how much you'll be using it. It only cost around 50 cents to call back to the U.S.) slip the sim in under the battery and you're ready to go. For the $40.00 I paid for the phone I've gotten plenty of use out of it.

RAG1011

NancyU, I forgot to mention if you purchase a phone it needs to be unlocked so any carriers sim card can be used in it. I did a search on ebay just now and found one phone that would be compatable. Go to ebay and type in 5858515764 in the search box. This is the item number of the phone. Or, if you want to search for other phones, just go to cell phones and type in africa, europe, or some other key word to find similar phones.

NancyU

Thank you so much for the info it is a great help! And I am off to eBay (how did we ever manage before eBay <g&gt

jimgl33

i recently bought a Motorola phone that is "Quad-band GSM" through Cingular Wireless. quad-band GSM phones can be used anywhere in the world, including the US. i am leaving for south africa tonight and plan on using it there by purchasing a SIM card when i land. like the previous posts mentioned, be sure the phone is unlocked or other SIM cards will not work. good luck.

jasher

Hello,

I have a Motorola Razor V3, which is a quad-band phone, and have used it successfully on three continents (North America, Europe, and Africa).

If you buy your phone in the US, make sure it uses SIM cards -- one of my friends is with Verizon, and they don't use SIM cards yet.

Cheers,
Julian

deetman

Julian:

Acutally, Verizon (and Sprint) use totally different technology. It's not a matter of using a sim card yet or not....they never will.

Most overseas countries use GSM networks--Cingular and T-mobile in the US.

If anyone has service with another carrier in the US, your phone won't work overseas (except in South America, and I think parts of Asia--they use CDMA, but I don't know how roaming works there.)

Hope this helps.

Scott

mowmow

How much do the SIM cards cost when you buy them in Egypt? I'm trying to decide whether I want to buy one, or invest in a world-wide SIM card. I already have Orange, Turkcell SIMs I'll never use again.

Casual_Cairo

I have an extra mobile you can rent from me if we can work out the logistics of getting together in Cairo to get it to you, and get it back at the end of the month. Contact me at my email address and we'll see if we can work something out.