cell phone in europe
 

Does anyone know about renting a cell phone while we are in Europe? We are coming in and out of Amsterdam and would like to rent one that I can use all over Europe. My local provider here in the US does not do international and I read about getting an unlocked phone on ebay but that sounds very complicated.

I wonder why you think buying a phone on eBay is "very complicated." You search for very basic (no-frills) phones with these specifications:

900/1800 mHz
GSM
Unlocked
Dual-voltage charger

Shop sellers who have at least 99% positive feedback and several hundred transactions. I just found some completed auctions for less than $30.

Then order a SIM from united-mobile.com

You're done.

Why does the phone need to be unlocked?

If it's locked to a specific carrier, it won't work with anyone else's SIM.

I think its best to just get an unlocked GSM phone and buy a global sim card. This way you can use the phone in all of Europe and have much lower calling rates. Go to www.oneroam.co.uk, www.telestial.com, www.rangeroamer.com, or www.travelsim.com, they have the best products.

i'm just wondering how many posts need to ask the same question over and over?

Robespierre, thanks for those technical details. I'm going to look for two of those phones to have for traveling. I've never done ebay before, but my hubby is an expert!

saving cause one day I will break down and buy a cell phone to use overseas...

If you're near the end of your present cellular contract, look at the offerings from wirefly.com - there are usually dozens of free quad-band phones from many carriers.

Cingular and T-Mobile provide roaming on their own networks in Europe.

Note that wirefly has a shabby record with regard to paying rebates promptly - so if you use them, keep all your receipts and other documentation and prepare yourself for a long wait.

Take a look at www.mobal.com - we bought one of these phones before we left for our European cruise. It worked great! Easy to use and you're only billed for the calls you make. Highly recommended! We'll be taking it with us to France in April and China in Sept.

Did you get the $49 one? I want to buy two so would be happy to get the cheapest if it works.

So is $1.25/min the cheapest rate to/from europe? I guess we're spoiled by .03 cents per minute from US to Europe.

Nope - we bought the $99 one because if you notice the $49 doesn't do the U.S. We didn't want to have to carry two cells phones.

The phone is really easy to use. All you have to do is make one call a year to keep it activated. Used it while we were in Italy without any problem.

We rented from Adams phones while in Scotland,they deliver to your hotel,just google it1

I bought one from telestial. They are a phone company that sells cell phones and sim cards. They are great. Just tell them where you're going and they will set you up with sim cards etc.

Be aware that when you buy from telestial, you are paying at least three times the price you will pay for a sim card then if you wait and buy it upon arrival...and telestial may restrict your choice in carrier and not necessarily use the best carrier in a country.

Their prices for phones are also high....check out ebay.

1) We don't want to make or receive calls from the U.S. If I'm traveling with my husband we want to be able to contact each other if we get separated. We had a very stressful experience last time we traveled together and I'd like to avoid that in the future.
2) If I'm not traveling with my husband then I'm with son and with my sister and her husband who reside in England and have cell phones with British "area code." I want to be able to call them if we separate.
3) I read something by poster on another forum who complained that his $49 Mobal phone, which I believe he ordered from the U.S. before traveling, had a British phone # so when he used the phone in Italy, it was quite costly. If that were true for our Mobal phone, it wouldn't bother me since I'd be using the phone to call the other Mobal phone we buy or my sister's British #.
4) Whatever phone we choose, my family averages two trips to England or Europe each year so the phone would get used 2-4 weeks per year.
5) On a very lengthy and complicated thread on this topic on this forum I read about www.prepaidgsm.net which I'm now going to investigate. We're leaving Dec. 14 for Italy to meet my sister so I've got to get moving on this.

I welcome your ideas! Now you understand how I want to use the phone.

I gotta get one of these

I just phoned Mobal, and if I'm using their phone in Italy to call my sister with her British cell phone, it'll cost $1.50 per minute. To call the second Mobal phone would be (I think) $1.25 per minute. Or that was the cost to call Italy. Still investigating.

Since you're in England a couple of times a year and since you're leaving in less than 2 weeks, here's what I would do.

I would wait till I get to England, go into a Virgin megastore, and buy the cheapest phone along with a virgin mobile sim pack. Virgin mobile sim packs cost very little and for the most part all you have to pay for are phone calls...calls to landlines in the UK cost 15p/minute (timed in 1 second intervals though with a 5p minimum) for the first 5 minutes of use each day, 5p/minute thereafter again timed to the nearest second with a 5p minimum. Calls to North America are only 20p/minute timed in 1 second intervals with a 5p minimum again and count towards the 5 minutes of use...calls to other mobiles on other networks in the UK are 40p/minute. While you are in England, get the phone unlocked.

When you get home, you can investigate an international sim card since roaming with a virgin mobile sim is quite expensive.

Another alternative you can read about while in the UK is Mobile World...5p/minute to call the USA, 15p/minute to call other phones in the UK either landline or mobile but timings are raised to the next highest minute. Mobile World sims are free, you pay only for the time you use but it has a very limited life (90 days) and does not allow roaming outside the UK.j Virgin mobile sims are good for 180 days and to keep them active, all you need do is send 1 text message within the 180 day period, very easy to do.

Do be aware that the eu is giving mobile companies in Europe a hard time and intra eu roaming rates may be dropping very soon.

You can also consider O2 while in the UK...again sim is very cheap...calls within the UK are priced about the same as Virgin.....you can bundle a plan with them to make cheaper calls to the USA or you can get a calling card and dial the local London number (0207....) and pay local rates and calling card rates. They allow roaming and they a plan which make and receive calls for 35p/minute (70¢ US) while roaming throughout Europe.

The forum at www.prepaidgsm.net has people from all over the world who are very knowledgeable about local conditions in Europe who will help you and the advice they give, unlike much of the wrong advice some know nothings throw out on this forum, will be correct and most helpful.

xyz123, thanks for your thoughtful and thorough reply. This December trip, however, is to Italy. I'll be meeting my sister there and she is traveling from England.

Could I buy a Virgin mobile (or something similar) in Italy? It sounds like a deal. I think I'll just wait until I get there and if I pass an electronics store I'll take a look at what's on offer.

Actually, it's not so terrible...mobile phone prices in Italy are pretty cheap and so are sim packs and getting phones unlocked in Italy is fairly simple.

So...

Go into an Italian mobile phone store and buy the cheapest phone possible along with a sim pack...italian sim packs as noted are very cheap. This will be your phone in Italy along with an Italian number.

Once again, roaming rates are high within Europe at present so it would be expensive to use the Italian sim card in the UK but as noted, UK sim cards are all but free and with an unlocked phone all you have to do is buy the sim pack...either Virgin Mobile or Mobile World as noted.

When you change the sim card in the phone, a simple simple matter, your number changes from an Italian one to a UK one so you will have to notify people of the 2 different numbers...hardly an insurmountable problem in this day and age of internet and text messaging.

The three carriers in Italy are TIM, WIND and Vodafone IT....they're pretty much the same and as noted, sim packs in Italy are cheap...you can check actual prices on www.prepaidgsm.net in the operators section...or you can pose a question in the Europe forum there and I know the forum moderator is Italian and he might have suggestions as to which Italian carrier is best. I know the UK carriers and would go with either Virgin Mobile or Mobile World.

best thing I've done this year was to cancel my verizon contract and picked up a LG quad band phone from cingular. Since we travel overseas quite a bit during the year, I also signed up with their international roaming plan which was 4.99 a month (I was told that I could cancel at any time) - free roaming while in Europe and phone calls are $1.29/min.
In previous years, we've always rented a phone from the U.S., dealt with other people's cologne and had to call forward my phone number to the rental before departure - plus remember to send it back as soon as we got home or get dinged for extra rental days.

We were in Spain recently and the cingular phone was fantastic - I was able to access my voicemail without dialing a 12 digit overseas number (usually UK), access codes, etc.
I was also told that thru the web - cnet has links on their website - there are posts advising how to "unlock" certain phones, so you could pop in an overseas prepaid sim card .

The topic is covered in other threads...

Using Cingular and T Mobile, the other US GSM carrier, international roaming is a simple alternative and yes it works very very well and if you have a tri band phone with one of the European frequencies, you will in most parts of Europe with international roaming enabled be able to register on a European network and make and receive calls without having to worry about another phone number and scaring people off with the myth that it is expensive, these days, to make an international call.

Hving said that...99¢/minute rounded up to the next highest minute, is a lot of money and if you're away for 2 weeks at a time and receive or make 1 quick 5 minute call every night we're talking $70.....if you believe the phone is just for emergency use and don't really intend to use it, that's fine, simple, neat and it will work without any hassle.

But if you really feel the need to have a functioning mobile phone...if y0u're like me and like to keep in touch with friends and family while travelling, it is far better to bite the bullet. As noted, it might only be necessary to have your US GSM phone unlocked, and apparently both Cingular and T Mobile will provide unlocking codes. Once the phone is unlocked, it is a simple matter to buy a local sim card if you're going to be in one country for a while, switch the sim cards. With GSM phones, the phone number, company, rates, are all controlled by which sim card is in the phone...when you come back home, switch the sim card back (those using Verizon as their carrier in the US are out of luck as Verizon using a completely different technology called CDMA; those need to buy their own phone).

Having said that, there are reasons a tri band phone from either Cingular or T Mobile might not be the right choice (in short tri band phones being issued recently by the 2 carriers lack the 900 band which might be a problem with certain carriers in Europe although not all that much of a problem when using the phone for international roaming)..quad band phones resolve that issue.

The point is buying an unlocked gsm phone with the European frequencies in this day and age is a simple matter...many are available on the net and also in foreign countries (although getting them unlocked can involve some extra work on your part)...renting a mobile phone in the 21st century for the most part is like throwing money away, especially if you travel outside the USA more than once in a millenium.

Finally, there are international sim cards which give you free reception of calls throughout all of western, central and Eastern Europe west of Russia. I and others have described the virtues of United Mobile on other threads (do a search for United Mobile)...couple that with an account from callbackworld (www.callbackworld.com) and indeed you can easily have

1) Free reception of calls throughout all of Europe west of Russia, South Africa, China and Australia.

2. Calls back to the USA for 14¢/minute timed in 6 second intervals, no more of this raised to the next highest minute.

3. An 800 number which with a pin that you can give to your friends and neighbors allow them to call you toll free from the USA with you only paying the 14¢/minute timed in 6 second intervals noted above.

Today, it is a very cheap and economical way to go but as I said with the eu moving in direction of cutting down international roaming fees within Europe, there might be cheaper alternatives in the near future.

There's also VOIP and phone cards that will work also.

And to keep in touch, if you and a friend or family are both on a trip, and you don't want to spring for a local sim, using Cingular and/or T Mobile will enable you to text message each other for relatively little too.

New to this board but here's my quick story about cell phone use in Europe. Due to a sudden emergency, I had to buy a cell phone while in Italy to call back to the US (and to be reachable from the US.)
I purchased a cheap Samsung phone in Sicily --about 49 Euros -- and a SIM card (I think it was from TIM) with 50 Euros prepaid. The phone worked great -- I was informed that ALL incoming calls to the phone were free for me, and that calls to the US were 50c per minute, which seemed reasonable. I never had a single problem either receiving or making a call. One added bonus is that we were able to make local calls in Italy without using the crappy phone booths that often don't work.

Good to hear a success story, and an easy solution.

I'm meeting my sister from England in Venice this Friday, and she has two prepaid phones that she's bringing for us. I don't know how that will work, but they're for emergencies only, to contact one another if we separate, so if this solution works out, it doesn't cost me anything. And I can still buy a phone, as you did, if needed.