heelfan

Last year, when I went to Paris, Rome and Florence, I checked with my cell phone provider (Cingular, with a local phone company handling the billing and sales) about taking a cell phone to Europe. My son's phone is a Sony Ericcson GSM-capable, and the phone people said it would work. They set up my temporary Europe account. Well, that phone did not work at all.
Now, I'm getting ready for a June trip to Paris and Munich, and I really need a phone for family reasons. What went wrong with the Cingular phone? Should I just go the Mobal route to be safe?
Thanks for any advice,
Pam

simpsonc510

I'm not sure what you mean when you say Cingular set up the GSM phone for you. I always get my SIM card when I arrive in Europe with my GSM phone. It is an unlocked phone that I purchased in Bangkok, and I can get SIM cards that work just fine in both Asia and Europe. I pay for the SIM card plus minutes, which I sometimes need to replenish. The SIM card gives me a NEW phone number each time, but I just email or fax home to let them know what the new number is.

Judy

heelfan, that has happened to me with Cingular. There wasn't anything wrong with the phone. They had not done whatever activates the international feature correctly. I called them from Paris and they activated it.
I would call them before you go and have them check that it was set up properly.

lisaindc

My sister had a similar problem with her Cingular phone in Paris last year and found out when she got back that the Cingular employee who told her it would work was wrong. I had no trouble with mine (I had a Motorola, she had the phone they offered when they ran out of the Motorola ones that I got). We both just got new phones and when I went to add the temporary Europe service was told that unless I would be talking for a total of 2 hours or more, it would not be worth the $6/month. They now have a 6 month minimum for the service, so it equates to spending $36 to save $.30/minute. Without getting the "service" you still have service if your phone is compatible, just not at the $.99/minute rate.

If you had problems with the phone last year and still have the same one, I would either go with a temporary phone service provider or get a new phone with Cingular that is quad-band.

Raydotman

I too have Cingular and apparently do not have the "right" phone to qualify for international service. I have heard good things about T-Mobile though.
Nevertheless when I went to Europe (Spain) I solved the problem by buying a local prepaid phone and using an ATT prepaid phone call to call home. It costs about 45 cents a minute with the card. This way you have the added advantage of using the phone to call locally to request/confirm reservations etc..and you can use the phone on subsequent trips to Europe by just changing SIM cards. You can also receive calls from the US gratis although you should warn friends and relatives that it is expensive to call from the US to a cell phone in Europe.

csroe

Heelfan, I also have Cingular service with a Motorola phone and THOUGHT I had everything worked out with Cingular last year when I went to Austria and Germany only to have no phone when I landed in Germany. After I returned, I called Cingular and after spending about 15 minutes on the phone it was discovered that when they set up my "international" service they had not set up my account for international roaming etc. The phone worked, but I was not able to get a roaming signal locally. Everything worked just fine when I was in Spain the next trip. In other words, make sure when you talk to Cingular that 1) the phone has international capabilities and 2) that they triple check your account to make sure that everything has been updated to allow use internationally. BTW, I only use my cell for emergencies and quick calls home to say "I'm here", otherwise I buy the international telephone cards and use them, much cheaper all the way around.

j_999_9

Been there with the Cingular phone. The problem is that some Cingular phones lack a memory chip that's required for international roaming. The second problem is that only about half of the Cingular reps know about it.

If you're going to try to use a Cingular in Europe, ask to speak to a rep who knows the phone requirements. If the person you're talking to say there are no special phone requirement, ask to talk to someone else who's more knowledgeable.