goddesstogo

We have 2 cheap but perfectly good cellphones we bought in London in 2010. Of course they need charging and I'm hoping we can do that at home with the European plug thingie (which has many parts for various places). And, of course, we don't remember our phone numbers. If we can get them going again, here are my questions:

1. Once they're up and running (fingers crossed), will we be able to find our phone numbers on them?
2. Will we still be able to buy minutes for 6 year old phones?
3. If we can do that in London, will we also be able to do it in Edinburgh?

Phones are so cheap in London, I know we can just buy new ones but I'm gathering quite a collection of "electronics that are perfectly good but we don't use them anymore" and I really don't want to add to it.

Thanks.
gtg

willit

It is likely that if they have not been used for a while, then the phone numbers will have been recycled.

That said, sim cards are either free or dirt cheap, and can be bought at any supermarket. If they were cheap phones it is likely they were tied to a network, so you probably need to buy the same company sim card (so my old phones are all tied to Vodaphone, and only those sim cards will work).

Again, top ups can be bought nearly everywhere.

sofarsogood

I doubt your old UK number will work if you haven't used it for 6 years - you'll need a new SIM.

Anything you can do in London you can do in Edinburgh.

Seamus

It's likely not the phone but the SIM card / service provider that determines whether you can top up after 6 years. In most cases with pay as you go I'd expect that you would not be able to top up - but you never know!

And if it charges up OK you can always just buy a cheap SIM in London. http://www.contentedtraveller.com/fo...d-data-london/

NewbE

Please excuse the hijack, but I have a possibly very dumb question: Why not just bring the same phone you use in the US and add an international data (and voice, if needed) plan to your existing account?

jamikins

If you go to one of the mobile shops you can just get a SIM card for like £10...we do it every time my parents come!

Seamus

NewbE - not to speak for gtg, but sometimes those plans are expensive and a local SIM is a better option. Depending on the destination / duration of travel I've done both.

willit

NewbE - although it is unlikely to be an issue with most modern phones, there are differences in the various frequency bands used for mobile phones in the US vs Europe.

sassy_cat

Yeah, I recommend bringing your regular cell and getting a sim card for that. Why struggle with an old phone when you can use your regular phone by just switching out the sim card?

Having left our cheapo UK cell phones at home on the last 2 trips (oops) we discovered this was much easier. Provided your phone is 'unlocked'.

Robert2016

You'll have to purchase new sim cards for your old mobile phones. The old sim cards will no longer be active and will not be able to be recharged.

If you had T-Mobile as your service provider, then you would simply use them instead of activating new sims.

NewbE

Thanks for the replies. I'm still confused, of course.

We were recently in Brazil, and were able to get an unlimited text and data plan from Sprint for free. Voice calls would have been 20 cents per minute, I think. Another option was unlimited voice, small amount of data for free, with additional data and texts available at some charge.

Are such plans not offered for Europe? Is it really true that my phone might not work there, regardless of plan? In that event, a SIM wouldn't save me--or would it?

goddesstogo

Thank you for all this information. I have to admit a lot of it is over my head. I apologize for my huge lack of cell phone knowledge but here are some answers and more questions:

Hi jamikins! When your folks come and they get a new SIM card, do they put it in their regular Canadian phone? And then once they go back home, what do they have to do to their phone, if anything?

How does one know if their phone is unlocked. And if it isn't, how do you unlock it?

If we took our phone from home, a UK roaming package is quite expensive (Canada has, I think, the most expensive cell phone costs anywhere). My SO has a Bell plan.

We were in London for 4 months and we loved the London cell deals. We bought 2 cheap phones at Car Phone Warehouse and about 10 gbp worth of time for each. For some reason, we always seemed to get bonuses of free international calls which is exactly what we needed. The fact that we could top up time at shops, our local Tesco, even ATMs was brilliant.

sofarsogood, are you saying that the phones/sims we buy in London will work in Edinburgh?

Seamus, that's a very interesting article -- thank you! We'll check out Three.

I'm going to toss all this info in my SO's lap. I've made all our travel arrangements -- all he has to do is arrange for the phones and plan drinks with a former student (oh, and write and present a paper at a conference in Edinburgh but who's counting that?).

xyz123

I'm not familiar with Canadian carriers, roaming costs and the like. Do you have relatively new smart phones? If so, it is very possible they will work in the UK by getting new sim cards (they are free) and topping up. Generally you can get quite nice packages for 30 day periods with £10 top ups (especially now because of Brexit, the UK£ is breathtakingly low). Topping up £10 each 30 day period then repeats the cycle. Also most of the UK carriers have free international plans with calls to Canada at 1p or so per minute. Hard to beat that.

I would start by calling my Canadian carrier and finding out what kind of international plans they have, whether you need a new phone and if it can be used internationally. Or maybe somebody from Canada can be more helpful here.

sofarsogood

An unlocked phone means that you can put a SIM card inside from any mobile network operator and it will work. When it's locked, it will only work on one operator's SIM.

The easiest way to check whether your phone is unlocked is by trying different SIM cards in it. If the alternative SIM card(s) work in your phone then it's unlocked.

<<sofarsogood, are you saying that the phones/sims we buy in London will work in Edinburgh?>>

without doubt….

jamikins

We have old &K phones from 2008...we just take them to the store and get a SIM card with time for like £10 and they work just fine.

jamikins

Old UK phones...

goddesstogo

jamikins, that's exactly what we want to do. We're going to try to get the old UK phones up and running and if we can do that, we'll just take them to the car phone warehouse.

I think that's going to be our first choice but if that doesn't work we'll check out the other options.

Thanks everyone