Will be in NSW and Qld for three months. What cell phone service should we look at to use while traveling. Coming from U.S.

Telstra. We also spent 3 months in Australia (also from US), and went through a similar search. We were told that Telstra had the widest coverage. It worked perfectly and we used it throughout all of Australia, not just NSW and QLD. We bought a prepaid SIM card and set up the service at that time.

However we used prepaid phone cards for calling back to the US. Much cheaper than the Telstra service with SIM card in the cellphone.

Apologies if I'm telling you what you already know, but you'll need an unlocked GSM phone able to operate on the international-standard 900 & 1800 Megahertz bands. Most US cellphone networks use a technology known as CDMA rather than GSM, and those that do use GSM (eg Cingular) operate on the 850 & 1900 MHz bands. You can get triband (900-1800-1900) and quadband (850-900-1800-1900) GSM phones that will work on both sets of frequencies. I believe eBay is a good source, but you must buy an unlocked phone, i.e one that hasn't been locked on to a particular US carrier's network.

As kathleen mentions, armed with this you can buy a SIM card with an Australian phone number and prepaid call credits once you get to Australia - dealers are everywhere. When you run out of credit you just take it to a dealer and have it topped up.

Cellphones are referred to as "mobile phones" here, incidentally. The advantage of a GSM 900/1800 phone is that you can use it in most countries of the world.

I agree with kathleen that Telstra has the widest coverage, especially in more remote areas. The next largest networks are Optus and Vodaphone.

All Australian mobile numbers are non-geographic, i.e. they aren't prefixed by an area code as in the US, and follow the format 04XX-XXX XXX. National roaming is a standard service at no extra charge.

Call rates however are generally higher than in the US, so I also endorse using a calling card for calls back to the US. They're very widely available and the rates are only a few cents per minute.

twoaussies, it's obviously too early in the morning for me to function properly - I just noticed that it was you, so I've probably been telling my grandmother how to suck eggs for most of that post.... must have another cup of coffee.
Cheers,
Neil

Definitely agree that the phone card is easy. (note, however, there is a surcharge for using at a pay phone). We were in NZ for 2 1/2 weeks and bought a $10 phone card for calling ahead for hotels and for calling home (US) for messages.

By the way, my US phone got a signal north and south island. (probably some dead spots, but I didn't check everywhere) Didn't use it, however, because it was expensive, especially since I had the phone card.

We were able to text from Sydney using our (American) t-mobile phones. We could also make calls but it was quite pricey.

"(note, however, there is a surcharge for using at a pay phone)."

Not sure I understand this. The phone card we use provides a (non-toll-free) local number in each capital city. Thus, you incur just a local call fee if calling from a payphone within the local fee area of the city in question. Local call fee areas in Australian cities are very large by comparison with most US cities, encompassing all or most of the greater metro area.

Admittedly you would have to pay toll rates if calling from a country area, whether from a payphone or say a hotel phone.

In the US the phone cards we used supplied a 1-800 toll free number to call, but the per-minute rates were set higher to compensate the card company for the cost of this facility. It's possible that some Australian cards also provide a toll-free number, haven't checked.

For the record, in Australia 10-digit numbers commencing with 1800 incur no charge to the caller. There are also 10-digit numbers starting with 1300 (and 6-digit numbers starting with 13) which bill the caller a local call fee but no long-distance charge.

Neil Oz: No worries mate. We dont even have a cell phone in the U.S. - one of very few. So thanks for the info.
As you the Neil I used to correspond with - living in the South part of NSW.

I am indeed, twoaussies - still here and kicking, although "here" is Canberra, but you were close. Looks like you'll have the time to cover a lot of ground this time!

Neil, love to get back in touch. [email protected]

Neil_Oz has given you a good synopsis of the basics. You do need an unlocked triband or quadband phone. In the U.S., Cellular Abroad <http://www.cellularabroad.com/> can supply you with the phone and a SIM card for Australia (or virtually any other country) or you can buy the SIM card once you arrive in Australia. We bought ours through them 3 years ago and got an Optus SIM card that worked very well for us, even in some remote outback areas. Telestial <http://www.telestial.com/> is another resource.

If you want to thoroughly understand International Cell Phone Service, in depth, here is the best reference I've uncovered, to date <http://www.thetravelinsider.info/2002/0308.htm>.

Oh, did anyone mention yet that incoming mobile phone calls are free?

Thanks everyone for your help.