Cell Phone Options
 

Hubby (who is about as technologically inept as one can get) is heading off to Istanbul in a little over a week. He is meeting his brother there who is arriving on a different flight (at the same time). He has decided that he wants to find out if he can get a Sim card for his phone or a cheap disposable phone to use there to be able to contact his brother if there is a problem. I doubt he will need it for much else. He will use his brother's phone for calling home since his brother is already set up for internationally calls and will need to use his phone for business while there. Ifs there a cheap and (more importantly) easy system that he could use or is he better off just hoping that both of them get there on time?

Where are you from? Who is your cell phone carrier at home...example, if you are American and your cell phone carrier is either AT&T or T Mobile USA, the solution is dirt dirt simple albeit a bit pricey for individual calls but if very few calls are made, then no problem.

If not from the USA, is your carrier gsm? Can your phone be unlocked? Does your carrier support international roaming...again in those cases the solution is dirt simple.

Or, for example, if you're from America is your carrier verizon...then the solution is somewhat more difficult.

Need more info to help out.

I am jumping into this as we prefer to keep our cell phones on when taking family trip in August. We have verizon, are based in New York and will visit Italy and France in early August (spending 2 wks. in Italy and one in Paris). When my Italian cousins came over to NY last Sept., they kept their cell numbers.

We want to use it between ourselves if we split up and my husband may have to make business calls. I will use it to call my cousins as we come into their towns.

Are you familiar with options for our cell phones to work in Italy and France? We are 3 in family who need to keep our phones going. Thank you!

jcasale - when in Istanbul I purchased and used a local SIM that I inserted into my unlocked triband GSM phone (AT&T is my US carrier). The cards are sold all over at news kiosks, and the clerk helped me set it up.

ciadeb- Verizon does not operate on the GSM system that is used in Europe so your phone won't work there. You have to buy an upgraded EVDO/GSM phone to use their international services. Service in Italy is $1.29/minute according to their website. You can always buy a cheap unlocked tri- or quad band phone (try eBay) and purchase a local SIM when you are there.

Thanks for the info. We have AT&T (and will keep this since it works well for us in rural Maine) and have found that if we upgrade our phone (which we were planning to do anyway since our phones are several years old) and sign a 2 year contract (no biggee), we can get a phone that will work in Turkey (and Thailand where we go next). As you said, xyz123, the individual calls will be expensive, but we would only be using it for emergencies. Amazing how far technology keeps coming :-P!

We actually did get info on getting a local sim card, but apparently we can't do that for the 1st 90 days, so that would not be an option this time, but could be next year if we travel somewhere internationally. Good to know that we have that option.

Thanks all!

to ciaodeb - Call Verizon - they have a new program that we are going to use. Sounds like your needs are similar to ours.

Go to tigerdirect.com they sell a full range of economical unlocked gsm phones. Just purchased a unit for upcoming italy trip. Went to telestial.com for sim card used promo code: frommers01 and saved 15%. If that code does not work google search for another. They offer a full range of pay as you go SIM cards.
Great deal in most countries over a US carrier roam rates. I went with a Telecom Italia Mobile SIM. ALL incoming calls are free. Local in Italy is only $0.35US and calls back to the states for $0.60 per minute. Recharge online or with RicariCards sold throuthout the country.

xyz123 I would appreiate your help. I llive inthe USA and I have an unlocked phone. Last year in Europe I used UM and cbw with varying degrees of success. I now have the 44 number with UM+ and was planning to use it with cbw. It looked to me that the CBW prices had come down again. After reading this forum and especially the Inernational GSM prepaid card forum I am lost. Could you just tell me the bottom line. Is UM+ and cbw an option or should I be looking into enlinea? Do I use enlinea in place of cbw with UM+.
Please help and thanks in advance and for your fine help previously.

I bought a basic unlocked Motorola GSM phone a year and a half ago from Amazon.com for $50. We traveled to Australia and NZ for 6 weeks on our own and it was great. It gave us peace of mind (and our family in the US) as we were driving a rental car in NZ and some areas were quite isolated. We bought a SIM card in each country at a phone store where the clerk set it up for us. Each card cost us the equivalent of $25 US and had enough minutes for our needs. We did have to recharge it in NZ for $10. It was invaluable for calling hotels ahead if we were going to be delayed or for making reservations on the fly. We e-mailed our family with our phone number and they called us using a prepaid International phone card I bought at Costco for $30,which I also used to call from home to AU and NZ when making trip arrangements. (I still have time left on it) Most phones in foreign countries do not charge minutes for incoming calls so we were able to speak with our family at home almost every day.

Hope this helps,

As others have mentioned, if you're American check with your service provider to determine if your mobile phone can be programmed or set for use in the countries to be visited. Just returning from three weeks in Italy and Austria (and with AT&T as our provider) we did just that. No set-up fee, and a rate of $1.29/minute. We made/received five short calls and transmission was perfect. Previously, we rented phones at well over $100/month, and again used them very little. Our objective was to have a phone so that our families could reach us, if urgent. In thise scenario, we used our same (U.S.) cell number which cut down on the confusion for dialing from the U.S. Cheaper, coverage everywhere (5 bars) in those two countires, and easier for those trying to reach us. Check it out!

Hi mci1

The new UM+ card is a good deal for people calling you as the number is now a British (not UK but British) +44 number instead of the Liechtenstein +423 number and calls to UK mobile phones are fairly reasonable on many (but again not all) US ld carriers (although not dirt cheap) and somewhat cheaper than calls to Liechtenstein....

However, for some reason cbw (as well as enlinea) charge well over 40¢/minute to call the USA via their service nowhere near the dirt cheap rates one used to get two or three years agon with the +423 card...

Right now, today, the cheapest way I have found for an international sim card is with the O9 card out of Iceland paired with enlinea...

Currently the rate on enlinea for the Icelandic card is 16¢/minute and while calls to Iceland for my friends would be expensive, enlinea will give you a US toll free number and ultimately you would pay the 16¢/minute rate noted above (the toll free number is something like a nominal $1/month)....

Leaving aside skype rates, it's become tougher to get multi country cards with reasonable calling rates to the USA although local sim cards, especially in the UK, can be had and calls to the USA be made for as little as 3p/minute..logos here has suggested a good German provider which has very cheap calls to the USA from Germany but unfortunately all the info on that is in German (as well as the voice menus)..

You can look at some of the passport deals at telestial which people claim are good although I don't know if they're really cheaper than using UM+'s naitive service to call the USA without any third party intervention.

Some of the Estonian sim cards aren't too bad for calling the USA via enlinea but are expensive to call to (unless you use the enlinea USA toll free service.

Yackie mobile will give you a US number for people to call where you will pay 29¢/minute to receive calls but calling back to the USA is something like 40¢/minute.

Please note Yackie Mobile actually uses the facilities of O9, the Icelandic company noted above, and a big hole in their coverage is there is no coverage in Switzerland, none whatsoever.

There really are no dirt cheap solutions to calling back home with a mobile international sim card except for O9 (as long as you stay out of Switzerland!) but some good deals on British and German sims (there may be others)...

Sorry for the bad news.

Thanks for your help even tho the news is not good. So, I use 09 instead of UM+ and enlinea instead of cbw? This trip I may just use up the money I have on UM since I don't expect to make too many calls and then check back with you in
September(next trip) to see what has changed by then. Again you are a great resource. Thanks.

www.solomo.de is working very nicely right now. Used it in Italy without problems.

You can also try www.yackiemobile.com. It's a US reseller of 09.is, has rather good rates (29ct/US) incoming and a free US local number. It didn't work in Italy at first, (The mailbox always answerd) but after one call to the helpdesk, it was fixed within minutes. Many phone providers won't connect to 09.is phones over here, but when you let the callers use the local number, it always works. 1a so far!

Just another bit of advice: Enlinea used with 09.is has very poor audio. Only one person can talk at a time, I use "over" and "roger" but sometine you still have to concentrate very much on what the other person says.

Quite true logos...also there is a very perceptible delay with enlinea but then again, you get what you pay for and you can't beat the price of 16¢/minute,,I would rate the sound quality as adequate for personal conversations..tough to use for business purposes granted.

However, it is caused by the use of voip's which is also what many of those calling cards use which provide oodles of minutes..nothing of course beats a dedicated fixed line for transmission but as I said you get what you pay for and the price is right.

The big problem, though, remains, the lack of coverage in Switzerland.