I'd like to have a cell phone in Greece. I would only want something to use very briefly and for safety reasons. I was able to find Cellular Abroad recommended previously on this site. I was wondering if anyone had found something a little more reasonable? What are my options? Thank you.
Cynthia

Do you live in the US? Have a cell phone? My cell service is with AT&T, we travel overseas frequently and I've found it easier to just use my home cell. I don't make lots of calls but do check in at home every few days, the cost is a bit high, usually 99 to 1.29 per minute but I find it easier as my family can get in touch with us by simply dialing my cell number. If you have AT&T you can get different plans such as World Traveler to use when you're away which does lower the per minute cost. Hope this helps.
Susan

If you're really going to use the phone that infrequently, what suspaul suggests makes a lot of sense. We did that on a trip to Amsterdam, Prague and Berlin and the bill was $12 plus A small amount to have inernational access for a month.

The other alternative is to take an unlocked phone (not tied to a particular US service provider) amd purchase a SIM card when you arrive - they're available at every "tabac". The price per minute will be lower and often incoming calls will be free. We've done this in Italy, The Netherlands and Belgium.

If your network is AT&T or T Mobile, your phone will work in Greece only if it uses the European frequencies, 900 and 1800. If it doesn't, or if your network is Sprint or Verizon, you need a different cell phone. Search for "cell phone" in this forum and you'll get all the information you need about your options.

>900 and 1800
Just to reiterate the facts.
GSM 900/1800 is used all over planet earth except for north, central and parts of south america, due to AT&* wanting to protect as much as possible of it's monopoly...
Not a european thing at all.

As usual, the countries of the earth (including Canada) agreed adopting this standard, execpt for the delegation of the US of A. "Our" Canadian friends said how much they would have liked to agree to the proposal, but they couldn't, because the US government was determined to not listen to the voice of reason...

Anyway, who cares, some get the benefits, other have to pay for it.

logos...

Why couldn't Canada do what they wanted? I understand and agree the USA is very contrary minded in many things however as I understand it, the frequencies suggested for the standard were already being used by other things in the USA and it would have caused quite an upheaval. Canada was certainly free to do what it wanted even though the US and Canadian phone grids are pretty much interconnected.

Of course, in fairness, nobody ever thought that cell phone technology would develop to the point where just about every 10 year old kid walks around with his or her own cell phone and people can use cell phones, if they make the right choices, relatively cheaply abroad!

>Why couldn't Canada do what they wanted?

They were such a small market, and the US was playing the "NATO" card, saying those frequencies were used for military purposes. Of couse they weren't... (at least they weren't in all the other NATO countries.)

Basically all they (he) said was, "we would have loved to agree to the proposal, but it wouldn't be economically feasible at all".

Remember during those days there wasn't a GSM network at all and the Canadians did not believe that going against the US delegation would be possible at all. Would he have known, what a success GSM 900/1800 will be all around the planet, I doubt they would voted against it.

It's all about politcs... (and money)

Come to think of it, otoh, all of Europe (and the world) has adopted the US HDTV standard.
Which makes things a lot easier.

Since "all" the movies come from California, this was the reasonable thing to do.

Thanks Susan but I don't have either of those I use Verizon. I've been told my phone won't work overseas. Thanks to all the other posts but I still need to find a cell phone to rent at a decent price. Gosh I didn't mean to get everyone else so excited.

I'll loan you a Europe phone (Motorola T720) if you send me a deposit for its eBay value. Then you can get SIMs that suit your travel plans.

username <b>paristransfers</b> POP server <b>yahoo</b>

&gt;&gt;Gosh I didn't mean to get everyone else so excited.&lt;&lt;

Fodorites are an excitable lot.

I wouldn't bother to rent a phone, it just seems like a lot of money and bother to me. Have you tried talking to AT&amp;T about buying a pay-as-you-go phone and using that internationally? They have a tri-band phone that should work for $10. However, I can't seem to find details as to whether you can roam internationally with a pay-as-you-go plan, or what the costs would be. However, if the costs are anything close to what they charge subscribers, I would think it would be reasonable enough, and easier than dealing with a rental agency.

Alternatively, have you thought about just buying a pre-paid phone while in Europe? I did this a few years ago in the UK and paid maybe $30 for a phone and enough minutes to last a couple of weeks.




<i>GSM 900/1800 is used all over planet earth except for north, central and parts of south america, due to AT&amp;* wanting to protect as much as possible of it's monopoly...</i>

The reality is that the first GSM network was not introduced until 1991, and even 2 years later, the standard was used by barely 1 million people worldwide. By that point, the establishment of systems in the US was already well under way and, given that the 900 and 1800 MHZ bands were already allocated, the US (and Canada) were simply too far down the road to drop everything and switch. In discussions of technological evolution, such a situation is often called path dependence, because choices (even, seemingly sub-optimal ones) are made based upon the constraints forced on future decisions by past ones. In short, it becomes too expensive to shift off of the path that has already been created.

You are also largely in error as to the importance of AT&amp;T in all of this. AT&amp;T was actually quite late to the game and became a major player only around 1994 (3 years after the first GSM 900 network), with the purchase of McCaw cellular. Even at that point, they had nothing close to a monopoly, and the US industry was widely fragmented. Industry consolidation did not start in earnest until the late, late 90's. At that point, AT&amp;T was not the largest player, and fell behind both Verizon and Cingular. By 2004, AT&amp;T wireless was on the block, and was acquired by Cingular. It was only within the past couple of years that AT&amp;T has returned as a brand name, following the purchase of the rest of AT&amp;T was purchased by Cingular (whose mobile phone business had enabled them to far eclipse AT&amp;T's value) and the rebranding of Cingular to AT&amp;T. Finally, there is the thorny issue that the currently AT&amp;T is actually a GSM carrier. They use different frequencies (850 &amp; 1900), but it is still a GSM network.

Not sure how you managed to make a technical issue like frequencies of cell-phones into an anti-American thing, but at least you could get your facts right.

Again, your facts are wrong. Have you been there?

<i>Again, your facts are wrong.</i>

Prove it.

I couldn't care less. It's just not important to prove anything to you.

<i>I couldn't care less. It's just not important to prove anything to you.</i>

I'll take that to mean that you have no evidence whatsoever to back up your claim that my account is in error. Of course, this would be less problematic if my account were a string of cliches and unverifiable assertions about intent, as your claims are. Since it is, rather, a more detailed account of verifiable facts, such as the date the first GSM system was in place, the degree of uptake of that system, the allocation of the 900 &amp; 1800 MHZ bands at the time of the GSM introduction, and the history of AT&amp;T's wireless division, you might want to bring a bit more to the table if you want to question facts.

Or, you can keep making things up about Canada's agreement to the European GSM standard. This would, of course, have been quite the political feet, as the GSM standard was established by the CEPT and ETSI, which are basically confederations of European regulatory agencies. In short, this was a Europe-only decision made by regulatory fiat, without concern for some sort of global consensus. That much of the globe (including US carriers like AT&amp;T) have gravitated to the GSM standard is independent of any agreements among the EU nations. And the adoption of the GSM standard is independent of the frequencies each country has allocated (CDMA networks also use the 1900 MHZ band that US GSM networks use), especially given that the usage of multiple frequencies has been largely resolved (and quite easily so) by the introduction of multi-band handsets, the technology for which is required simply to meet the dual-band systems in place in both Europe and North America, and is readily extended to 3 or 4 frequencies.

I've done my part to educate you. If you have any substantive proof that any of my statements are in error, I would love to see it.

Basically, of course, travelgourmet is correct...the frequencies are not the big issue although some of the phone manufacturers have been a bit slow in producing quad band phones (Nokia comes to mind) and there is also a bit of confusion with tri band phones. About two years ago, Iread of a person who bought a tri band phone on ebay for a trip to Croatia. She bought a local sim and could not register on the Croatian network. She was told the phone was locked. She came home and contacted the ebay merchant who swore on 1,000 bibles the phone was unlocked...well indeed it was. The problem was she bought a made for America tri band (850, 1800, 1900) and the Croatian network was an exclusive 900 carrier. I diagnosed the problem immediately. Americans buying tri band phones are always faced with this problem...if I buy the US version, I don't have 900...if I buy the European version I don't have 850....it may or may not make a difference...if roaming in Europe on the US carrier, you can generally find at least one 1800 carrier almost everywhere likewise if a European is roaming in the USA with a tri band, then they are restricted to roaming on T mobile which might leave some gaps in their coverage but not in the big cities or for the most part along the interstates.

To be sure, you need a quad band but as noted only Motorola had gone in for quad bands in a big way. Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson are beginning to catch up.

The technology issue is well a bigger issue; especially to verizon customers who wish to roam. Verizon has basically decided, and who is to quarrel with their decision, that the need for international roaming is not overwhelming among their customers. Hency they have continued to use CDMA which does put them at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to international roaming.

Interestingly enough, vodafone until recently has had a 49% share in verizon wireless..I always wondered that if verizon ever decided to sell the remainder to vodafone (vodafone I think also made a bid for AT&amp;T Wireless before it was bought by Cingular) whether they would rebrand as vodafone USA and convert to gsm to standardize their network. But obviously it won't happen now.

Meanwhile, back to the question. . .

I bought a very simple Siemans phone through RailEurope. It cost $40, came with a chip that worked everywhere I traveled (France, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia). In fact, the claim is that the chip will work almost everywhere world wide.

It is fairly expensive per minute ($1 to $1.50) but for me it was a perfect solution. I had considered buying a phone on eBay and then buying sim chips in the various countries I traveled in but I kind of liked the idea of having a phone and a number before I left the US.

This solution isn't the best if you need to talk quite a bit, but it certainly worked for me.

Here's the link:

http://www.raileurope.ekit.com/ekit/home

It is .99 per minute calling a landline. My phone is a dual band phone, which means it won't work in the US. I also notice in the rate charts that calling in Mexico (where I travel once per year) is one of the most expensive calls: $3.49 per minute. Not a very good deal.

But otherwise something to consider.