SIM card? What is it?
 

Sorry to ask such a question ;) But what IS a SIM card? I have Verizon cell phone and was told by them it won't work in Europe, so is a SIM card something you'd use with your cell phone? Or is it a calling card to use at a hotel phone. When my son went to London, he used an international calling card bought at a store here in the US and it worked fine. Is that all I will need in Italy? Thanks...

<b>S</b>ubscriber <b>I</b>dentity <b>M</b>odule - a chip that goes into GSM phones - the type used most places in the world - that carries the phone number, allows the system to find the phone, etc. Verizon uses &quot;CDMA&quot; technology (don't ask) that is not in common use around the world.

If you want to use a cell phone overseas, you'll need either to buy an &quot;unlocked&quot; one that uses the rest of the world's frequencies, then buy a &quot;pay as you go&quot; SIM when you travel, or subscribe to Cingular/ATT or another US service that uses GSM in N. America, then arrange to have &quot;global roaming&quot; added to your contract. OR, just rent a cell phone when you travel - pick it up at the airport and drop it off later. May be a bit more expensive, but you don't have to have another gizmo cluttering up your life.

Thanks Gardyloo...but after reading your very informative response, I think I will just buy an international calling card! :) I only need to call home (kids) a couple of times anyway.

Just one other thing to clarify...there are many different competing technologies used by mobile phone operators....about 15 years ago, because in Europe crossing national borders in some cases was an every day or every week occurrance, it became important to standardize the technology used in mobile phones as well as frequencies. They chose a technology called GSM....just about every mobile phone telcom in Europe uses GSM (technology is marching on, however, and new technologies are being introduced but GSM is still basically the standard in Europe)...the beauty of GSM is it operates on a little chip called a SIM card...change the SIM card and the phone number, company and everything changes so you could use the same phone on a Durch network and when you weekended in Germany, either pay high international roaming rates or switch sim cards and voila you now had a German phone with a German phone number. A bit more to it than that but that's basically the system in Europe.

The USA, contrary minded as always (although perhaps in this case with good reason), never standardized on a technology so as it developed, different technologies are used. Verizon, for better or for worse, does not use GSM and hence does not operate with sim cards. So more or less Verizon is useless for international roaming (except if you want to lay out mucho dollars for a phone which uses its technology as well as GSM)...there are some workarounds but that's basically the story.

T Mobile USA and Cingular use GSM but then there's the frequency issue.

Using calling cards for the odd phone call will work and is very cheap. But what you lose out on, if it's important, is the 24/7 ability to be reached..that may or may not be important to you.

Yeah, them Durch networks are the pits. Remember <i>Kraft durch Freude</i>, and how that turned out? &gt;)

Here's my summary of Europephone lore: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34986388