Thanks again, xyz -- you are a gold mine of information! If I can find someone with a sim card, I'll report back.

I purchased a Nokia 3310 from Mobal with SIM chip for $49. It seems to be a good bargain since the phone was unlocked and has a better warrenty than an Ebay purchase. The Mobal service is from a British Cell company called O2 and you only pay for actual usage.

We spend several weeks in Greece every summer and use CosmOTE prepaid service. CosmOTE alledgedly has roaming, but we've never been able to make a call from the Amsterdam airport in the event of a delay. (I've since read that we can only receive calls while roaming.)

Now our plan is to travel with the Mobal SIM in the phone for emergencies and then to use local SIM's when we spend more than a few days in a given country. A few minutes of calls looks cheaper than an initial SIM purchase in many countries and it is not always easy to find a shop immediately on arrival. It's good to have a working backup phone until you get service in a new country.

I have a Mobal that works in 144+ countries and I use it only when needed. It has consistently worked and been very convenient. I do not check e-mail while overseas, do not routinely call home, and if someone wants to reach me they have been given an itinerary with hotel phone numbers, etc., and been told to use my Mobal # (which is a UK phone number)ONLY in the event of an emergency.

I've been very pleased with the service.

Update:
I checked my recently-received Mobal Nokia 3410 - I inserted my local T-Mobile SIM and got this message: Insert SIM, which I assume means the phone arrived "locked" to Mobal's SIM.

Guess you need www.unlockme.co.uk.

After my Cell Phone Query post, and subsequently ordering the Mobal $49 phone, I found this thread.

My home cell is NOT GSM. I only want one to travel..mainly France. I don't think I care whether it is locked or unlocked. I will only be using it for within France calls..dining reservations etc...may call home once. It says that I am charged for calls when/if I make them..turn it on when I arrive in France and turn it off when I leave! I have used the "free" Auto Europe phones..they all had a UK phone number, too. I have also rented from Cellular Abroad. Thught it time to buy my own with it being so cheap! They have sent me my permanent phone number. I do have a few questions for them on Monday, such as charging it before I leave so it is ready to use when I arrive at CDG, are customer service calls free and available 24/7, etc.
I, too will report on mine after using it in September.

okay guys- I just got my Mobal phones- we are a largeish family group and will split up frequently so I got them to communicate between ourselves- this gets costly since Mobal charges for incoming as well as outgoing calls- meaning when hubby calls me we pay twice. We'll be in Paris and Normandy for almost a month so renting phones didn't make sense.
The phones arrived with the SIM cards seperate in the box- I'm supposed to insert them- does that mean they have arrived unlocked?
if so- should I just take them as they are and buy SIMs when we arrive in Paris? Or should I charge them first? Do I have to put this SIM card in to charge the phone? (okay- that's probably a dumb question, but bear with me, I'm a bit over my head here but willing to learn.)
This question has been discussed endlessly but I still need a bit of help. Thanks for patience.

Charge the batteries before you leave.

You do not insert the SIM to charge the phone.

The phones may or may not be unlocked - the way to tell is to insert a <i>different</i> SIM and see if the phone boots up properly. You'd have to borrow one from someone who uses a GSM phone. (or wait until you get to your first destination and let the shop see if it's locked; they can probably unlock it for a fee it needed).

I've just won a Mobal World GSM phone from Budget Travel. I don't travel overseas much so if anyone out there is interested in buying it at a discount, let me know. There is no monthly fee. You pay only for the time you use and it works in 140 countries. (see mobal.com ) The phone is a Nokia 3410 still in the box. The GSM SIMM card still in the original shrink wrap. The phone has never been used or removed from box and includes 5 travel adaptors. Contact me. My email address is sirangler (and it is) at hotmail.com (I have altered my email address to prevent harvesting by spammers, but I'm sure you can figure out how it is supposed to be.) Or you can call me at (801) 561-9995. Leave a phone number and email address if I'm not in. Thanks

thanks travelnutty- all is clear now.

SIM
CARD QUESTION.
SIM cards determines phone number which you send back to USA. SIM card purchased in ITALY will have one phone number and SIM card in Germany, another?????

Correct, doris.

Just returned my WCR rental cell phone..NO SIM CARDS..NO WASTING TIME LOOKING FOR NO LONGER EXISTING phone booths..no hassle of reselling a purchased phone..spent $103 for 3 weeks including delivery and return..numereous Italy/Sicily and USA calls and great reception..the people in our Florida office were great...I'm a Grandmother and too old to play the BEST DEAL ON A CELL PHONE game...

TO: TRAVELNUT
Another question, to unlock a phone, does it have to be activated somewhere?
We have tried to unlock, but don't know what GIDl, GID2 and MSIN is.
WE also don't know what network, we put in &quot;manual&quot;, that didn't work. would you be willing email me. doriemae hotmail? Thank you

Doris, I'm not the best person to ask about 'unlocking' a cell phone. I could not achieve satisfaction in my attempts to unlock my Mobal phone, although others have been successful. I believe it is locked because it gives me an &quot;invalid sim&quot; message if I try my T-Mobile sim in it. But I can't get it to display ANY messages when I entered the various unlock codes I got (from two sources). I'm going to let someone at a phone shop in Paris check it out after we get there in a couple of months.

You don't have to have service to unlock the phone (you take the SIM -out- to put the codes in anyway); the display is supposed to flash a message that indicates &quot;unrestricted&quot; or &quot;restriction removed&quot; or something like that. I couldn't get those messages to display on my phone.

To: Travelnut,
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. We got it unlocked. One son tried, no luck, another tried got it unlocked but he doesn't know how he did it. LOL
Now to get a SIM Italy card before I leave so a number will be available. Am going to keep my mobal sim as a backup...just in case.

Thanks again and hope you have success unlocking yours. You and so many of the others posting have been so helpful. Thanks to all.
Doris

Sirangler - I may be interested in the phone - is it still available? Thanks...

I saw this thread and thought I'd post about my recent positive experience with Mobal. I bought the phone online for $49. It was easy to charge and assemble. I did not bother with unlocking it, as it was only be used for emergencies since we left the kids at home with Grandma. If anything, Mobal UNDERcharged us, as we had several less-than-a-minute-long phone calls that never showed up on our credit card bill. Go Mobal.

Hi jamiec

See www.mobalrental.com

Can anyone tell me how text messaging works? Do you have to subscribe to a service to text message from US to a cellphone with a Riing SIM?

Revisiting this thread with great interest. A couple of questions: does each European country have a different SIM card? We will be on a Med cruise and visiting several countries within one week.

Also, doing a similar cruise in South America this winter. Would I have to buy a different SIM card for each country visited?

In my case (cruising) maybe it's best to just purcase a Cingular Quad Band phone here in the USA and pay the per minute rates since I will be calling the USA sparingly. Thanks for sharing such knowledge with the tech challanged like myself.

You may be a perfect candidate for riiing. To answer your question, generally before riiing you would have to buy a separate sim card for each country you were visiting if you wanted to maintain contact but once you leave a country with a particular country's sim card, you are roaming and subject to very high rate including the thought, heaven forbid, of paying to receive a call.

That's where riiing comes in...I and others have posted lots of stuff about riiing. Go to www.riiing.com to see which country's are in riiing's zone 1 (almost all of Western, Central and Eastern Europe) and I know I just had a friend who did a cruise and was able to remain in touch with him through almost all of the cruise.

As far as South America is concerned, a complicating factor may be frequencies of their gsm carriers. I am not up on that and I don't know which South American countries are considered zone 1 by riiing. That information is on their web site.

Cingular international roaming might be an alternative but remember you will always be roaming and always be paying an arm and a leg (well maybe only an arm) to receive calls.

Thanks for the quick response. I will look at the riiing.com site. My best guess is I will be making calls and not receiving any (barring any emergency).

Hi NYG,

&gt;...I will be calling the USA sparingly.&lt;

In which case you might want the Mobal $49 phone, leave it alone, and pay their fees.

((I))

Yes, maybe the Mobal is a better option. I just read on www.riiing.com and if I read it correctly it sounds like I would have a different incoming phone number for each country visited. This would not be useful in case of an emergency.

No no no...your riiing number remains the same wherever you are with a 423 country code for Liechtenstein.

xyz123, don't you get tired, having to repeat the same answers again and again? ;-)

..sometimes but it's always nice to help people save money.

I read this thread and learned a lot. I leave for France in two weeks. Does anyone have a phone they want to sell? Mobal or an unlocked dual band one. Answer here or email me at [email protected]. Jerry

Well, I think it's on to short notice. I am looking for a canadian telus pay&amp;talk kit. Sold with a nokia phone, new for about $100CAD plus tax. I could buy any phone lock or unlocked at about the same value in Germany and we could swap phones.
Maybe... [email protected]

Lots of unlocked phones on ebay at good prices. That will be your best bet probably.

Can anyone clarify something for me? The unlocked phones available on ebay- if it says they are cingular or tmobile unlocked does that refer to USA or Europe? Can I use any SIM card in an unlocked phone?

If the phone is unlocked, you can use any sim card in it but here's where you have to be careful and knowledgeable.

If the ebay seller says it is a tri band cingular phone, it is not all that good for Europe as it will surely be lacking 900 frequency as cingular phones in the US need both 850 and 1900 and hence will only provide 1800. Not that big a deal in most of the big cities but there are carriers throughout Europe that operate exclusively on 900.

Up till now, T mobile unlocked phones, tri band phones that is, were 900/1800/1900 but increasingly t mobile is beginning to have roaming agreements with US companies that operate on 850 and some of their phones are tri band 850/1800/1900 which again means you lack 900.

Make sure, if you are getting the phone for use in Europe, that it is tri band 900/1800/1900 and it will operate on tmobile US fine too but not necessarily cingular US&gt;