cell phone - buy or rent
 

I am going to travel around Portugal by rental car and would like to have a cell phone. I would like to buy an unlocked phone to use overseas. Where can I do this and how do I get a sim card for Portugal? I want to be able to add minutes easily as possible. In the future, I would use the phone in other countries.

Thanks,

Bonnie

Buy one. What is your point of entry in Portugal?

Buy a triple or quad band phone, making sure that it is unlocked.

I have used the Riiing Sim card for 3 trips and it is very easy to use. It has changed names now, I think it's Global Riiing or something similar.

It works all over Europe without having to change the sim card for each country. It's 39 euro cents per minute, and the prompts are in English (Big deal in my book.)

I have added minutes both by going on line with a credit card and by calling the number. I've always gotten an English speaking person.

The phone number will be from Lichtenstein. If you use it once every 9 months you will keep it activated and with the same phone number. I loan mine out when I'm not going back to Europe within that time frame.

I highly recommend watching the unlocked Sony Ericsson T610's on EBay. I picked up three of them there. They come up all the time. Best is to watch for a while. When you decide to bid, wait until the very end - within 2 minutes of ending time.

The T610 is a terrific phone (even has a camera). If it doesn't come with a manual (and most of them do), you can download it.

Buy a SIM card when you get there.

You really only need a dual band unlocked phone that can be used in Europe if you want to take baby steps in this new venture.

It is more practical to either buy a country specific card, or to buy a multi country card as djkbooks suggests.

It is not practical to buy a SIM specifically for Portugal and plan to use it in other countries. The roaming costs would eat up the minutes.

A Ring SIM card can be used in mulitple countries.

Good luck.

For the ultimate simplicity and a phone that works in several companies, and the card does not expire--check www.mobalrental.com

I just checked Mobalrental.com. The price of the phone looks good but the per minute charges are very high.

For instance, to call the US from France it's $1.50 per minute. To call another country from France, it's $2.95 per minute. Ouch.

The real kicker is the incoming calls are charged at $1.25 per minute. The one I use has free (to me anyway) incoming calls.

I realize the per minute charges are higher than some, but you can buy the phone at a reasonable price (about $40, I think) and have no monthly charges beyond the calls you make. The most attractive thing to me was not dealing with different cards for every country, and having cards expire--another way you lose money.
The whole issue is complex, but when I compared ALL the costs, I thought mobal was slightly better.
Vera

I don't think any of the sim cards have monthly charges, but I'm not familiar with all of them, just Global Riiing, Orange and I think I used Mobicart one time. The rates on Riiing were much lower so I'll stick with that one.

Vera, the one you reseached would have a plus going for it if it never expired, or at least would go beyond 9 months. I think I paid around $30 or 40 for the Sim chip.

You can buy an unlocked phone from Ebay.

Make sure that it is unlocked and that it has the correct frequencies for Europe.

You can buy a SIM in each country for as little as E5 or E10. Use them up and throw them away if you aren't going to return. We are not talking about a huge investment here.

Per minute usage costs are sometimes as low as .17 per minute.

If you intend to return to Europe, why rent a phone?

This sound more complicated than it is.
Incoming calls are free.

I just received my unlocked tri band gsm phone from ebay. So, if I am going to Paris, Portugal and the UK, it is cheaper to purchase the SIM individually in each country? I would prefer to get just one that works in all three countries so I wouldn't have to keep informing the parents each time we get a new SIM;new number. What are your thoughts?

Hi Sher!

Riiing works in all countries as does the one Vera found. I'm sure there are others.

The benefit of a multi-national sim, aside from having to buy a new one for each country is in keeping the same phone number. It was a big issue for me but it might not be for you if you don't have to be "reachable".

Another thing is topping off. Any minutes purchased before you left the country would be wasted. You'd be buying a new sim for each country, each with different instructions, not necessarily in a language you understand. Again, that might not be an issue for you but it was for me.

has anyone used a cingular phone and added international roaming to call and text in italy?

Linda431,

I am leaving on Tuesday. Is there local (USA) vendors that sell these riing sim cards w/o having to send away through the internet? Or can I just as easily purchase one once I arrive in Paris?

Hi Namaka.
We purchased a SIM in Portugal for use there and just topped it off. Easy to do and you can buy them everywhere.
This time we are going to use our Riing SIM (multicountry) that I have even though this is just a single country trip

The nice thing about the Riing SIM is that it has a phone number that is available to you before you leave. The calls go through a Lichtenstein number and you can know what you are paying because all of your calls are from there no matter where you are.
Also, the people calling you will pay as if they are calling Lichtenstein.

The prices are much better than with a mobilerents phone.

We also are going to use the Riing SIM but we have Callback World. So I am going to register the SIM number with them and will actually get billed by them. We only have E5 credit on the Riing SIM. We will not use any of it.

As Vera says, you may want the number before you leave.

Otherwise you can buy individual SIM cards. But of course, it is a different number in each country.

Namaka. Do you have enough time to get a Riiing SIM?

Sher,
I doubt I have enough time to get a riing sim if I have to send away for it. I leave on Tues.

I'm just wondering if I could get something in Paris once we arrive that would work in all three countries. Any suggestions?

I think you would be able to express a card from one of the vendors, I actually looked it up for you. It is very expensive.

I don't know if you can buy one in Paris. But I know we could have bought one in Lisbon.

The reason we did not was because we were only going to be in one country, it was the first time we used a phone in Europe and we were being cautious. Also the man we bought it from told us the cost per minute was much better with the nonroaming SIM.

Also, I looked at the various prices per minute and they range to about .69 as far as I could tell. The most we paid in Portugal was .34 per minute and the weekends were .17. I don't know what value you get for your money elsewhere. We spent about $65 total and I called eveyone. I called all of my family, I called my girlfriends, just about anyone I wanted to. My family called me, but of course that was free.

But one of the sites I looked at the express service was about $35 plus the cost of the SIM. And when you pay whatever for the SIM, you only get a portion in calling time. The rest is for the service.

You can get a lot of calls for $35 on an individual country SIM. There is a cost for the SIM that does not give you any minutes. Like I paid $25 but only had $10 or $15 of call time initially. After that, I believe the top off was all call time.

Thanks again Sher and Linda431.

I think I'm just going to wait until I get to Paris and see what I can find.

Sorry BonnieN for jumping on your thread.

bookmarking

I agree it's probably too late to order one. That's one drawback to the Riiing card, you can't buy it locally.

Bonnie, is Lisbon your point of entry in Portugal? If the answer is yes, then don't worry. Contact me and I'll help to find everything (phone and SIM) locally in 15 or 20 minutes.

our point of entry is Lisbon, but we fly 2 hrs after touchdown to Madeira. 3 days later we fly to Porto where we will visit the city and pick up a rental car and drive toward Lisbon where we will stay our last 4 days.
any thoughts on arranging the phone in the us or portugal would be appreciated.
bonnie

I just got off the phone with my cellular company, (Cingular), discussing international calling for our upcoming trip to Scotland and England. They offer a plan, (for a one-time $5.99 charge) that allows international calls at the rate of .99 cents per minute to be added to my phone. That seems simpler than renting a phone and I don't know that I can find rates that much cheaper, correct? I also thought I'd take an international calling card and use that for most of our calls back here to the US because I believe that would be cheaper. I mainly want the calling plan for family & my husband's business associates to call us in case of true emergencies. Does this sound like the best way to go?

If your phone will work over there (900/1800 mhz) that sounds like a good plan.

But I'm confused about the calling card. If Cingular will add international calls for 99 cents, why do you need the calling card?

Well . . I don't know for sure that I'll purchase the calling card. It's just that I assumed that a calling card would certainly be cheaper than .99 minute (maybe not). We need to have the cell phone primarily so that people can reach us when necessary and so that we can make calls when we're not near a phone. But when we're in our hotels, I thought perhaps the calling card might be the cheaper way to call back to the US and check on kids and business. But then again, I've never done this so I'm just speculating :-).

Bendeemer. Did you ask Cingular about incoming calls? I don't know if they are free or not for you. Just so you will not be surprised by your phone bill when you return home.
And I don't think the calling card will be more than .99 a minute but I have not real experience with England and Scotland. This is just from using them elsewhere.
Be careful in hotels. Sometimes there is a surcharge just for using the phone.

Namaka. I found my bill from the Riiing SIM I bought on Ebay.

It was E22.95 (plus E4.86 shipping) and it included E5 of calling time. So basically the card itself cost me about $30.95 or so since I have so little calling credit. This is just to give you a point of reference. Whatever you get I think from then on the top off would be all calling time.

I would think that anything you could buy in Europe would not be any more than that and probably less. Of course, you would probably want more call time.

Yeah, I did ask about incoming calls and the same rate applies. The Cingular lady suggested, if I was worried about that, to keep my phone off and let people leave messages, (we'll warn them in advance to keep them short) and then just turn on our phone occasionally and listen to messages. There's no charge for them calling as long as the phone is turned off & it goes directly to voicemail. She warned, though, if the phone is turned on - even if we don't answer it we will be charged for the time the caller spends leaving a message. This way (leaving it off) we can listen to messages every couple of hours & then determine the importance of the calls decide which ones we absolutely have to return. We are taking my phone since fewer people have the number. If we took my husband's phone he would have every person he has ever worked with calling him non-stop.

Thanks for the warning on the hotel fees. We'll have to check on that.

Bendemeer -- a calling card purchsed IN the country you visit will probably give the cheapest possible transatlantic calls. I've had really cheap calling cards in Spain, Italy and France (hours of call time to the US for only $6-8) and I expect there's something similar available in the UK.
This site may be helpful:
http://www.zaptel.com/

sher,
Thanks for the reference. I will be leaving on Tues. I will have my lap-top and will try to keep everyone up to date.

Dear BonnieN
I asked if your point of entry was Lisbon, becasuse I could take you to the wonderful world of low level (no neons) shops. In one of my favourites I saw a 2nd hand GSM terminal by 19.99 euros. Of course brand new and unlocked terminals should cost more than this.
These shops offer better deals than the official TMN-Vodafone-Optimus shops.
But since your first stop in Lisbon is so short, and you probably won't be able to leave the airport, then I'll drop my offer.

lobo mau,

I am overwhelmed by your generosity. Thanks so much for your kind offer to help us, but we will be there only briefly. Today, I also received an email from the quinta near funchal where I want to stay -- had been wondering why I they did not respond to me email asking about air/hotel pkg. turns out that they were calling all over llsbon trying to help us out. We travel frequently -- have been on 3 international trips since february -- and I have never found such helpful people as planning this very last minute trip. Thanks and we really look forward to our trip.
Bonnie

Hey, Lobo
If you don't mind, and if I do not find a SIM card in Paris that will work for all my countries, could you direct me to a place to get a SIM once I arrive in Lisbon?