I know people who go overseas & buy used or older model cell phones once they get there. It's a cheap way to go,if you can't locate an affordable dual or tri-band one here.

First, a big thanks to xyz for the incredibly patient and updated info.

I will take a 3 month solo trip in a leased car to France and Italy in late August. I've researched phone options till my eyes glaze over. I'm thinking of using either United-Mobile or callbackworld, but am not sure if they are the same thing. Clarification appreciated.

Since I don't have a cell phone here at home (CA), I wanted to get a phone which would be good for Europe use, but also can be used back home.

Does anyone know if the Mobal $99 phone would serve this purpose? And, if so, can I buy their phone but use United-Mobile or callbackworld services instead of Mobal's? I'm reluctant to call and ask, for obvious reasons :-)

Needs of phone and service:

1. calls within France and Italy for res's, info, calling acquaintances--hopefully free or cheap incoming from within those countries

2. Ease and cheapness of calls from U.S. to me in Europe

3. Can receive messages

4. Ease and cheapness of calls from me in Europe to US

5. Capacity to use phone once home in US

I am leery of doing the eBay thing for various reasons.

I would so appreciate input on which phone options and/or services you think would best suit this package of needs.

Thanks,

Karen

Just to be clear - what I'm getting from my reading the above messages - if I:
1. Buy an unlocked quad band phone.
2. Get a United Mobile SIM card (or any other that has free incoming calls from US)
3. Set my home land-line phone to forward to my United Mobile SIM card number,
then
4. My children (or others) could phone my home phone number, and I would not have to pay for the call (free incoming from US), and my children would be charged whatever they normally have to pay to call my home?

Is that how it would work? If so, that's what I'm planning to do!
Thanks ahead for replies.
Lucy

Sorry - but to clarify a bit to the above message, we will be in Italy for 2 weeks in the fall. Not expecting to do a trememdous amount of calling back to the US, but do like to hear from our children every few days or so....
Thanks again!

Lucy...

The only thing wrong with your scenario is possibly #3 and #4....

What you describe is what I basically do when I'm on holiday but I have 2 advantages that you might not have

1. My primary long distance carrier is AT&T long distance and for $1/month they have a special international rate. Believe it or not the country to which their rate is cheapest for mobiles is.....Liechtenstein. I pay 10¢/minute to call Liechtenstein on this plan.

2. My landline company, to the best of my knowledge, is the only one that to the best of my knowledge allows remote call forwarding to international phones...normally my landline is set to call forward to my US mobile phone wherever I go...when I get on the plane say at JFK just before the announcement to shut all mobile phones I change the forwarding number to the united mobile number...from that moment on anybody calling my landline in NY has the call forwarded to my united mobile phone (totally transparent to them BTW) and they pay to call the landline and I pay 10¢/minute...of course when I call home I use callbackworld and pay 14¢/minute.

Now as an alternative if your landline allows remote call forwarding to domestic US numbers (I assume you're in the US) from callbackworld you can get for $1.50/month a US toll free number that you can program to ring to your united mobile number...so you set the call forwarding to your US toll free number and people in the US don't pay (it's toll free) and you pay 14¢/minute for each completed call!

That will work!

Neat isn't it.

Oh BTW Lucy, my home landline is on Verizon.

You can also get, I think it must be somewhere in the thread. for free a US toll free number that works with a pin...so you can key this number to the united mobile number, give it to your kids....they ring the number enter the pin and the call goes to you again at 14¢/minute...for the inconvenience of a pin, you save $1.50/month....plus the cost of remote call forwarding (Verizon charges me $6/month for it but I use it for other things say if I'm at work or staying at a friend's place, I constantly change the forward to number remotely)...

Hope that helps!

Thanks xyz123. My long-distance carrier is AT&T, so I can sign up for the $1.00/month, .10/min. plan. What I guess I need to do first is make sure my landline provide (Comcast) will allow me to forward to an international number... hadn't thought of that. As both of our children live local to our home, there is no very little cost (if any) for them to "phone home". Off to call Comcast!
Thanks so much....

This is a fantastic thread and just as I am starting to do my research into telephones etc for Italy, Spain, France and England. I just checked out callback world as recommended by xyz123 and have a question. I live in Australia. Can I join from here or do I have to be a US citizen? From what I read it seems available to all. I can send them an email and ask but am so excited at the prospect of finding a solution so soon I am keen for an answer.

Cheers

I have a GSM phone (unlocked) and I'll be in Paris and Barcelona. Anyone know if SIM chips are readily available in stores like they are in the UK? I just picked one up at a convenience store for 30GBP which included 20+GBP worth of credit as well.

bay - Paris yes they are everywhere. Barcelona I don't know.

xyz123 - Great tip on the international call forwarding.

Monda...

Absotively posilutely you can use callbackworld....you will be billed in US dollars and your credit card issuers will convert to AUD (unless CBW uses dcc but I doubt it!).

I want to say that I read all the reports here and elsewhere regarding how to buy and use a cell phone outside the US. I purchased an unlocked GSM quadband phone. I purchased a SIM card in French Polynesia. They never worked together. We eventually rented a phone in that country to use. I'm not saying the advice is incorrect, just that things don't always work out the way they are "suppose to". So if you really NEED a cell phone, you might want to consider renting one in the country you are visiting -- just to be sure. JMHO

Well, you need to be able to operate the phone you've bought. Sometimes and for some it's really difficult. Even if everything is technically correct, sometimes there's a band (frequency) setup which is incorrectly set. Easy for most people after reading the manual, for others it's close to impossible. As is changing the SIM, some highly educated people fail, performing this "simple" mechanical task. For those, renting (or asking some kids) is better :-)

Logos -- just to clarify, I asked everyone I came in contact with for help. No one could get the two (phone and card) to work together - including the "geeks" at the phone stores. We all finally just gave up. Sometimes things just don't work .. no matter how knowledgable one is. My point in the post is that its impossible to test the phone and card together before you leave home if one buys the SIM in the visiting country. If a phone is of urgent need, best to know before you go.

You can be sure that it'll work if it's GSM, unlocked and has the right frequencies. It's not rocket science ;-) ;-)

Hi
This gets more confusing. Several months ago I renewed my Cingular contract, bought a quad band phone. We went to activate the other day for Europe and was told it is automatically activated and will cost us $1.29 per minute. As we don't plan on making many calls this will be good enough for us. Plus we could buy a phone card as we did last year. Last year we supposidly had Cingular activate our phone for Europe, which was great until we went to use it. Found out they had screwed up. wish us luck this year, with a new quad band phone, Cingulars assurances that it is operational. For anybody who is thinking that we should use T-Mobile, we live in an area where there is not signal for them. In fact a few years ago we had to switch over from Verizon for that reason. It's better now, but I'm satisfied.

You have the phone, it's quad, unlocked so there's no need to use the SIM supplied by Verizon, it only complicates things for you. Why not buy a united-mobile SIM, it costs 15ct/min to call the US from (almost) anywhere in Europe. Or get a local SIM when you arrive, they only cost a few €.

Add to list:

Some phones have settings that decide whether and which networks they'll look for. Every one is different, but a knowledgeable phone store clerk should be able to sort yours.

"You can be sure that it'll work if it's GSM, unlocked and has the right frequencies. It's not rocket science."

O.K. Logos -- so what went wrong? My phone was quad band, GSM, unlocked, and we tried several different SIM cards in several different shops in French Polynesia. Nothing worked. Seemed like rocket science to everyone who shrugged and said "I don't know"!

Just send me the card an the phone. ;-)