cell phones
 

I want to buy a cell phone that gives me maximum international roaming capability. I understand that I need the GSM bands. I am looking at the Sony Ericsson T62U that has the 850 and 1900 bands. Any experience with this phone when roaming internationally? Any other recommended phones.
Thanks

I have a Siemens phone and Cingular service. I called cingular before heading to Europe a few months back and had them activate international roaming. I had no problems with the service other than I had to dial the full numbers with country code, couldn't just use my speed dials. It's about $1 and minute so coming home to the bill was a drag, but what are you to do? :)

I don't have your model, but used my Sony Ericsson T300 this past fall in Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland just fine. Parties at both ends of the call were surprised at the clarity.
(Billed thru T-Mobile at 99 cents/min).

What countries are you travelling to?

850 and 1900 are used in the US. You need 900 and 1800 for Europe. Since you also (I assume) want to be able to use the phone in the US, you want either a tri-band (you want 900/1800/1900 not 800/1800/1900) or quad-band (800/900/1800/1900). Note that 800 and 850 are used interchangeably.

Do you want to roam with your current carrier? If so, it can be very expensive. For example, TMobile ranges from $0.99/minute and up depending on where you are going. Most other US carriers are the same or even higher. And, when roaming on a US carrier, like in the US, you must pay for calls you send and receive. Please check with your current carrier for details if you are interested in this option.

Do you want to use your phone with a locally purchased SIM card? This can be much more reasonable in price. HOwever, if you want to do this, you must also ensure your phone is unlocked in addition to having the correct bands.

I personnally have two unlocked tri-band (900/1800/1900) phones which were purchased from ebay. (Nokias 7210 and 7250). I used the 7250 in England with a Virgin Mobile pre-paid SIM last October. It was very simple -- just popped the VM SIM in my phone and worked immediately. Also was very inexpensive.

Thanks carrolldf - this was good advice.
I too was looking for cell phones.

Thanks for all of the feedback. I will use them mostly in Europe, South and North America, and Asia. I understand Asia gets complicated.

I just got a sidekick with T-mobile and they say they have service in Europe, but not text messaging. We used our Nextel all over Europe, from Sicily to Majorca and were never without service, but we made some long phone calls and our bill was $800 for a month trip.

I never bring cell phones overseas. It's just something else to worry about. And I'm trying to get away from the familiar! I just buy a cheap calling card when there.

I have a Noikia tri-band which works everywhere in the world but Japan. (Japan has a whole different system than the rest of the world.) It is an excellent phone. That being said, any tri-band phone will give you access around the world (Japan excepted), it is really more dependent upon which which service provider you use. It then depends on the quality of local service provider which your home service provider has arrangements with. Some will not be able to provide you with text messaging or voice mail in certain countries (like Swisscom cannot seem to do outside of Switzerland).

IMO, any phone is OK, but service providers make all the difference. T Mobile seems to have a lot of fans here; I know many Americans who travel in Europe also use AT&T and are pleased.

Just be careful with the statement all tri band phones work throughout the world.

In its never ending quest to be different (actually not all of it is their fault) the US has decreed that the 2 GSM frequencies it uses for mobile communcations is 850 and 1900. T mobile is completely 1900. In parts of their GSM networks, AT&T and Cingular use 850 as well as 1900.

Well the "tri band" phones AT&T and Cingular push are 850/1800/1900. Some carriers in some European countries use both 900/1800 so the phone will be fine. Other carriers use 900 exclusively so your phone won't work on those carriers.

Also as a matter of policy, when you buy a phone from T Mobile, they will provide the unlock code with relatively few strings attached (I think you have to be a customer for as little as 90 days but somebody else can correct me). AT&T and Cingular will not part with the unlocking codes no matter what; although you can get the phones unlocked through various web sites. Nokia phones are particularly easy to unlock as there is a free calculator on several web sites that computes the unlock codes for you.

Example...Virgin Mobile, the best and easiest to use pay per use SIM carrier in the UK operates on 900. So if you bring a so called AT&T tri band even if it is unlocked and try to put in a Virgin Mobile SIM you will be unable to use it.

If you're doing business with Cingular or AT&T mobile, your best bet might be to buy an inexpensive dual band (900/1800) on the net. They're usable most places throughout the world (North America and Japan being the exceptions of course) and they're sold unlocked. My suggestion to friends has always been the Nokia 3310, a perfectly reasonable phone without such whistles as cameras but a perfectly usable phone. They are sold by many of the internet merchants for $85 thereabouts. When you get to the UK, you buy a Virgin Mobile service pack for £10 with £5 worth of call credit and within 15 seconds, you're in business.

Any other questions, other than to recommend a particular merchant or how to acquire the Nokia unlocking calculator, please holler.

If I'm not mistaken the Norwegian carriers also use the 900 band as the primary band and the 1800 as a overflow band, so the coverage on 1800 only might not be the best, I don't actually know since ALL phones in Norway sold the last 8 years have been dualband (if not triband). And if you want a new Nokia phone I would suggest looking at their triband offerings since in Europe you can usually get the new models around 6 months earlier than the states. And at about the same price as well...

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