dunnbv

Can American cell phones be used in Italy...if not can you rent them??
Thanks

christy1

Yes, you just have to have a model that works in Europe (this is standard nowadays)...if you aren't sure, call your provider.

Neil_Oz

The short answer is 'no', unless you have a quadband GSM-standard phone, i.e. one that can handle the international 900/1800 MHz frequencies, AND is not locked in to your American network provider. This would allow you to buy a SIM card with prepaid call credits in Italy. (Most North American networks use CDMA technology, which is incompatible with most of the world's networks, and those that are GSM-based use 850/1900 MHz frequency bands, also incompatible.)

There are several options, though, all canvassed at length in earlier threads - run a search on this forum and you should find all you need to know.

jmw44

Hello. At another thread Intrepid has mentioned the "quadband" phone. I wonder if Neil or Intrepid might be able to list the specifications one should require when shopping for a cellphone.

I'm still using a bag phone in my car, if that will give you some idea about how behind the times I am, techno speaking.

I would like to be able to travel in Europe while maintaining frequent contact with aging parents, and I'd like to be able to do that w/o having to attend to additional purchases or procedures when I do leave the U.S. Thanks in advance. J.

repete

I bought a load of cellphones for a group from overstock.com. Their supply varies but recently I paid about 50 bucks a apiece. There are plenty of other vendors if you do a search for ``unlocked GSM world phone."

If you plan on getting a phone only for traveling, you just need an unlocked dual band -- just make sure it's 900/1800 -- commonly called a ``world phone.''

Then you have to get a SIM when you arrive. Not a big deal.

But if you want convenience and don't care about price, you can pay extra to a place like Cellular Abroad. You'll probably pay more to rent the phone than you will to buy one and you'll probably end up paying more for the SIM/calls expenses ...

Bottom line: The value of these services is up to you.

BTW, Christy1's advice is a bit misleading. While more U.S. providers are offering GSM phones, it's a very small share of the market -- the old CDMA is the predominant standard in the U.S. and won't work. I like GSM a bit better.

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but Verizon used to say they'd have European service but not with your current phone. They'd rent one to you for $3 a day, then charge crazy roaming fees! Such a deal.

christy1

I find all these instructions rather odd, but of course I only know about my own personal experience. When I first went to Europe with a cell phone, all I did was call my provider (T-Mobile), who told me my phone would work there, and then all they did was activate the phone so I could use it there. I did NOT have to buy a sim card in Europe, or sign up with a new provider, or get a new phone. My sister, who works for T-Mobile, told me most phones they sell these days can be used in Europe, but perhaps T-Mobile is unusual in this way?

I think the bottom line is-before you do anything, call your cell phone provider.

CAPH52

We are Cingular customers. When we went to Ireland last month, I added their international plan to our existing package. Two of our phones are triband, the third is quadband. We were traveling with a group, in two cars. So wanted to be able to communicate car to car. We gave the other car one of our triband phones with instructions to call the quadband.

There were times when the triband lost service and the quadband still had service. But, fortunately, it didn't ever cause us any real problems. And, in fact, my brother was able to use the triband to call his kids in the US. So, all in all, this worked well for us. And it was much easier than having to rent a phone, deal with SIM cards, etc.

We still haven't been billed. And I'm not happy about the fact that I can't drop the international plan until we've received the bill. But I still feel that, for the peace of mind it gave us to know that we could communicate with the rest of our party, it was well worth it.

Fibonacci2358

T-Mobile and Cingular operate GSM systems which is standard in Europe. GSM uses TDMA technology.
Verizon, AllTel...etc. use CDMA technology which will not work in Europe.
There are a couple of choices for T-moblie and Cingular Customers
1. Ask your provider to "set up your service to operate in Europe. This is possible if you have a quad band(BEST)or tri band GSM phone. (American bands are 850 and 1900 mhz; European frequency bands are 900 and 1800 Mhz)

If you do this you can receive and make call on your phone with your number. THE COST WILL BE HIGH ~ $0.90-$1.40 PER MINUTE.

2a: Ask your provider for your SUBSIDY UNLOCK CODE so you can take the American SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module) out of your phone and replace it with a European SIM you buy in Europe from one of the European service Providers. THen you buy the SIM when you get there and you have a European phone number with "regular European phone rates" You can buy Prepaid GSM cards in most countries for 20 euros or less with some amounts of minutes on the card. When your avaliable minutes run low, you can purchase more minutes. Rates per minute range from 12 to 40 cents/ minute (maybe more) depending on whether you are in only 1 country or inmultiple countries.

2b. (This is an option for Verizon, Alltel etc customers, as well as Cingular and T-mobile customers)
Buy an unlocked GSM phone here in the US and take it to Europe and Buy a SIM over there. (Buy it here so you get an operation manual in ENGLISH!) Buy your SIM there so the service provider can activate it and answer your questions.

You should look for an UNLOCKED GSM phone that is Quad band or European Tir-band. Quad band will have all frequency capability 850/900/1800/1900.

European tri-band have both 900 and 1800 and one of the other frequencies..either 850 or 1900

American Tri-band have both 850 and 1900 and one of the European bands.

You can find lots of unlocked GSM phones on E-bay.

Check out Prepaidgsm.net for information on various prepaid GSM SIM card and rates for countries worldwide.

lisaindc

Just an addition about Cingular - I used my Cingular phone in Paris last year with no problems. I added the international plan that dropped the cost of calls from $1.29/minute to $.99/minute and then cancelled it when I returned. I am going to France next month and called Cingular yesterday to add the cheaper minutes and was told that unless I was going to talk for 2 hours total, it would not be worth it. Evidently, they have changed their policy and require that you keep the $6/month service for 6 months. I did doublecheck that I was all set for the $1.29/minute and am good to go.

StuDudley

>>We still haven't been billed. And I'm not happy about the fact that I can't drop the international plan until we've received the bill.<<

CAPH52

We have Cingular and will be doing the same thing as you - making calls in Europe to the US and to restaurants in France, Italy, etc. We don't want to buy a France SIM card (long story why), so we're planning to sign up for the "World Traveler" option for $5.99, which lets us call the US & receive calls from the US for $.99 per min while in France, instead of the normal $1.29 per min. There is also a "World Connect" option (which you can get in addition to "World Traveler&quot that allows us to call France from the US for $.07 per min.

Calling France while in France is a little confusing. The "World Traveler" rate is $.99per min, which does not seem to make sence, since with the "World Connect" I can call France from the US for $.07 per min. The person at our local Cingular office said that France to France calls are $.07 with "World Connect", but the literature seems to state that the $.07 is ONLY from the US to France - and I tend to believe literature more than what someone tells me (although the literature is not very clear). If you signed up for the "World Connect" at $3.99, I would be interested to find out what your bill was.

Also, I was told that the monthly rate is for a "billing" month. So if my billing month is the first to the first of each month, and I travel from the 20th to the 20th of the month, I will incur 2 months worth of charges, although I will only be gone for 1 month. Is this what you mean by "And I'm not happy about the fact that I can't drop the international plan until we've received the bill"

Thanks

Stu Dudley

CAPH52

lisaindc, I'm fervently hoping that you misunderstood! I was told that I could drop the international plan as soon as we received the first bill on which it appeared. I'm going to be very, very unhappy if they make me keep it for 6 months!

StuDudley

>> Evidently, they have changed their policy and require that you keep the $6/month service for 6 months. I did doublecheck that I was all set for the $1.29/minute and am good to go.<<

Wow - I was told just the opposite at my local office 2 weeks ago. I was told that I could cancel whenever I wanted (1 month min). I was told this, however, by the same person who told me about the $.07 France to France rate which seems to be incorrect.

Stu Dudley

CAPH52

Yes, Stu, that's what I meant. I think there's a slim chance that we may only have to pay for one month. Because both cars were going to be using *our* phones, I added the plan to all three of our lines (so that I could give one to the other car and still have two in case our family split up for shopping, etc.). So it would be very nice if we don't have to pay for them for two months!

xyz123

We've discussed this before...using international roaming with either of the 2 US GSM carriers (T Mobile and Cingular) may be convenient but it is obscenely expensive $.99/minute to make and receive calls with T Mo and Cingular with the $6/month plan and $1.29/minute to make and receive calls with Cingular.

If you just want a mobile phone for the odd call from home in case of an emergency and perhaps to make one or two reservations, that's okay.

If on the other hand, you want a real mobile phone which you can use to receive calls nightly from home or to make a few reservations locally and call between each other, then the only way to go is a local prepaid sim package.

In the UK they are all bug giving them away they are so dirt cheap.France is somewhat more expensive but Virgin Mobile just opened a new service in France that is somewhat cheaper, Italy is cheap, Spain is cheap, Germany, Austria and Switzerland are somewhat more expensive. But the beauty of all local prepaid sims is the free (like in free) reception of calls while you are in the individual country so folks at home can easily reach you...you can couple that with a US 800 number from an outfit such as kall8 and voila you have a US 800 number where your friends can call you.

Inter European roaming is no cheaper than the overpriced US international roaming plans so if you're on a multi country trip, you might consider united mobile which was once known as riiing (note 3 i's)....do a search on riiing and you can read all about it...you get free reception of calls throughout all of Western Europe, you get a Liechtenstein phone number which might be a problem as many of the US carriers have deliberately raised their ld rates to Liechtenstein mobiles to try to sabotage riiing but there are some that haven't...you can read about pairing riiing with callbackworld to get the ability to call using your riiing mobile for 14¢/minute timed to the second hardly more than a cheap phone card.

So the basic idea really comes down to what you want to do with the mobile phone...if you want a real mobile phone local prepaid sims or the international sim from united mobile are the only ways to go; if you want to simply have a phone for an emergency or a call or two home, you can use the rip off tmobile/cingular rates.

The choice is yours but at least understand the choices you have.

repete

Christy1,
That's because you're in the minority. In many ways, a fortunate minority.

T-Mobile is one of the few GSM-based companies in the U.S. As mentioned Cingular is another. Sprint/Nextel, Verizon, Alltel are all CDMA, which are worthless in Europe.

So, yes, if you're with T-Mobile most phones will work if T-Mobile. You didn't need a new SIM because you already have one -- although you probably paid a much higher per minute rate than if you had picked up a European SIM.

U.S. GSM providers are finally getting a little more upfront about their product and are slowly getting better about unlocking or ``activating for Europe'' but compared to Europe they are still years behind. Most phones there are sold unlocked and will work with any carrier.

For example, when one of our group dropped (and then kicked) a cell, we just pulled the SIM out and put it in the phone of a person who had left earlier. The number stayed the same and off she went. All of her contacts were also stored on the SIM as well -- so they were available with the new phone.

I'd love to see the U.S. go all GSM, but for where I use my phone the coverage is better with my CDMA provider at this point.

repete

Plus another advantage of using a European SIM is that incoming calls are free.

xyz123

I'm not a techie but you should read some of the arguments on various mobile phone forums about the respective advantages of GSM against CDMA.

One thing for sure, as noted, GSM is so much more flexible...you can buy any GSM phone anywhere and as long as it has the proper frequencies, it's fine.

But there is a nagging problem and somebody alluded to it earlier in the thread. For years, T mobile was only 1900 in the USA and when it sold a tri band phone it was 900/1800/1900....AT&T (the late and the coming) and Cingular, late to the GSM game, began operating their GSM networks on 850 (also known as 800) as they had licenses in that frequency...with the result that when they sold tri band phones, they were usually 850/1800/1900....lacking the 900 band means there will be areas where that tri band will not work (I ran into that problem in Ireland a year and a half ago) and it can limit your choice of carriers say in the UK (example Virgin Mobile uses 1800 but others use 900).....no problem in the big cities but can be a problem in the rural areas.

The further stinker in this is taht T mobile, to increase its coverage, has begun allowing roaming in the US (outside its coverage areas) on other smaller US GSM carriers who use 850...so recently many of the phones T Mobile has been advertising as "world' phones are the inferior, at least for worldwide travelling, 850/1800/1900....

And to further ocmplicate matters, Nokia does not differentiate between the two models. For example the Nokia 3220 comes in 2 models, the world one with 900/1800/1900 and the "bastardized" US model (850/1800/1900)...technically the one made for the US market is called the "B" model but rarely on web sites is this made clear. For example, you might be in the market for a 3220 to take to Europe and you see a "world class" Nokia 3220 unlocked advertised on ebay...but the seller does not make it clear (he or she might not even know) that it is the US model lacking 900 but including 850 which indeed is necessary for using Cingular but if you're buying the phone for European use, you might be somewhat out of luck.

Sony Ericsson, at least, uses different model numbers to differentiate between the true world and US models...thus the SE T310 would be a true world phone (900/1800/1900) while the T316 would be the US (850/1800/1900) model.

The obvious soluton is quad bands (850/1900/1800/1900) which work everywhere but only Motorola has gone that way in a big manner and most experts, and I am not one, on this claim Motorolas are inferior to Nokias.

Of course, then there is Japan which doesn't use GSM and uses its own technology.....

hipvirgochick

repete - Are all incoming calls on a European sim card (using my Cingular phone) free from both U.S. and from Europe?

christy1

>>although you probably paid a much higher per minute rate than if you had picked up a European SIM.<<

Actually I didn't pay anything-the phone was only because I was meeting my elderly mother in law in Germany, and I wanted her to be able to get a hold of me in case she ended up missing a connecting flight, etc. But the point that finding a solution based on what you will use the phone for is a good one.

xyz123

all incoming calls on a local prepaid sim while in the country of origin are free to the receiving party. Example you buy a UK sim and are in the UK, you receive all calls for free; the caller pays a surcharge. Check out international rates on a US long distance carrier's web site.. you might see for example that calls to the UK from the US are 4.9¢/minute, a very nice rate (I pay 1.9¢ for mine but that's another story)...but you will also see that calls to UK mobiles are 30¢/minute the extra charge being necessary to compensate the receiving company for using their network.

Now if you leave the UK with that sim card, you will pay to both make and receive calls at rates, as noted, very similar to what tmo and Cingular charge for international roaming. This is called in Europe......international roaming. It has also recently become a very controversial subject in Europe and the EU has passed legislation indicating that in the near future it will prohibit or sharply reduce charges for intra European roaming...in theory that means that perhaps in the very near future if you buy a UK virgin mobile sim, you will get very cheap reception of calls say in France.

This is being fought vigorously by intrnational mobile companies like Vodafone and T Mobile who make a pretty profit on international roaming. Now it always irks me, although I don't use T mobile international roaming as I have a bunch of local prepaid sims as well as riiing, that T mobile charges 99¢/minute to make and receive calls while roaming with their excuse being they have to reimburse the roaming provider for use of their network.

Now guess what...T mobile US's roaming partner in the UK is..hold your breath...T Mobile UK both of whom are owned by the same company (Deutsches Telefon I belive) so when T Mobile US reimburses T Mobile UK for using its network, it is simply taking money out of its left pocket and putting it in its right pocket....and charging you for that.

Anyway, riiing provided the best deal in terms of international roaming as noted throughout all of Western, Central and a good part of what we called Eastern Europe, you got the free reception of calls and of course once you get free reception of calls, that makes callback systems very attractive.

It will be very interesting to see how this whole thing with the eu shakes out in the next year...perhaps logos who I think lives in Germany can give us some idea of where we stand with this.