International calling
 

I had Verizon for years and we are planning a trip ti Italy in January. I wanted cell coverage and Verizon told me they did not have International service. I went with Cingular $5.00 a month and .99 a minute. And we can only sign up for the one month of service and cancel when we return.

.. you did confirm that your handset has the correct frequencies for Italy..?

Granny...

Are you sure you can cancel the $5/month after 1 month; several on this board have indicated the policy was changed about a year ago and Cingular now requires a minimum of 6 months on that plan..

Not that the plan is necessary for international calling on cingular. If you don't pay the $5/month, rates for international calling increase to $1.29/minute to both make and receive calls.

Now, as always, it ocmes down to just how much you want to use the phone while travelling...is the phone just for the odd call or two and to receive calls in an emergency? Then it's fine to use international roaming and I wouldn't quarrel with it.

OTOH if you really intend to use the phone, the $1/minute adds up very quickly. You might want to do some research on local sim cards depending on where you're going or on international sim cards such as united-mobile...receiving of calls will be free to you and there are methods of cutting the costs to call the USA to as little as 14¢/minute.

So make sure this is what's best for you.

We were told that we could just have the one month of service. Just to come in a few days before we leave and have it put on our phones. We have elderly mothers that we would feel more comfortable being able to stay in touch with or we would not even consider the international calling. It is a luxury. We do not plan on "chatting" with kids or grandkids.

Had to have a new phone and they assured me that it was capable of international calling. Thanks

Those interested in a mobile phone solely for emergencies might want to look at the $49 phone from www.mobal.com.

((I))

Hi
I have Cingular and when i went to Germany in sept. We just used our phone without a plan. Paid $1.29 min. It was worth it as it only cost us $22 for the 2 weeks. We did not use it often at all just to call our children a couple of times. The phone I have is a quad band and works everywhere.

We used Cingular this past May for France. They put it in a few days before we left.

$5.00 a month and less than .50 cents a minute. I'm sorry I can't remember the exact rate but it was very low at the time.

Cingular offered it as a 2 month plan. Upon returning we could cancel the second month which we did without a problem.

One of our cell phones is with them so that could be why they gave us a low rate.

We had a lot of business so this was the most inexpensive way at that time.