I would like to be able to have my loved ones back in the US have the ability to contact me via a cell phone while I am in Australia. I would like to find out if I can buy, lease, or rent a cell phone for one month that would provide me with aphone number in advance that I could leave with my family. Can you pick up a phone in lets say Melbourne and leave it off in Sydney? Will the phone work everywhere in Australia, even off the reef? Does anyone have any suggestions or can you recommend a website to go to that would give me these answers.
Thanks

gate73,

The most reasonable method keeping in touch with your loved ones is to purchase an international cell phone from Sony Ericsson or Nokia which are available through AT&T. These phones can be used all over the world including the U.S. without any problems.
The only thing you have to make sure is that the phone is "unlocked" and in that way you can purchase a new simcard in Australia which should be available anywhere. These cards can be bought in any denomination amounts. When you purchase the card you will automatically get an Aussie telephone no. In this way you can call family etc. and they can call you anytime.

We are also visiting OZ in the near future and this is what we will be doing to keep in touch back home etc.
The phone we will be using is a sony erricson P800.

Hope this info helps.

I did hear that Qantas hires out mobile phones for customers, you could check out their website or if flying with a different airline, check with them.
Kay

Coverage in populated areas and along major roads is generally pretty good, but as anywhere, you can strike "black spots" in particular areas if you haven't got good line-of-sight to a base station. Remote areas may be a different question, given the economics of several carriers catering for a population of 20 million people in a continent of 3 million square miles.

The biggest cell networks, all with national roaming, are Telstra, followed by Optus and Vodafone. How you fare in any given spot is dependent on the placement of your carrier's local base station(s). I haven't checked lately, but the carriers' websites should display coverage maps. Check www.telstra.com, www.optus.com.au and www.vodafone.com.au.

In general I doubt that you'd have a problem on the Reef, but a local might like to comment about that.

DJE's solution sounds best, but if you want to check out rentals, a quick search turned up www.cellhire.com.au and www.vodarent.com.au.

gate 73 - mobile phone service is generally available on GBR but there's quite a lot of "drop out" areas.

There is a cell (mobile) phone rental service very close to arrivals at sydney airport.Vodaphone i think.