xyz123 - Cell phone help
 

I have read many of your posts on Fodors about your suggestions and I'm leaning toward your advise.

I want to give you our scenario and tell me what you think.

My husband and I will be in London together for a week. Then we will split up and he will go to Germany for some World Cup action and I am heading to Scotland to tour the countryside. Currently neither of us have phones with the duel band capabilities so whatever we do will require other phones.

Our phone needs are as follows:

• My husband will need to call the US for business purposes, both from England and Germany. Maybe talk 30 minutes every few days.
• We will want to be able to contact each other while I’m in Scotland and he’s in Germany to touch base, maybe ask questions etc.
• We would both like to be able to contact hotels or our tour guides etc if we need to get in touch with them.
• My daughter (in the US) would need to be able to contact me. She doesn’t have a land line, but just a Cingular phone.
• I return to US 10 days prior to my husband and I would like to call him in Germany.

I’m guess my best bet is to (as you’ve stated elsewhere)

1. Go to ebay or some internet seller and purchase an unlocked gsm dual band (900,1800) phone.

2. Go to www.united-mobile.com and purchase a united mobile prepaid sim card for €39 including shipping to the US.

3. Then I know my United Mobile phone number which will be a Liechtenstein phone number (423 country code).

4. Once I know that, go to www.enlinea.com, open up an account with enlinea. It is a call back service that allows you to make calls on your united-mobile phone for 12¢/minute US from anywhere in Europe to the United States all calls timed in 6 second intervals (talk for 65 seconds and you pay for 11 units of 6 seconds not for 2 minutes as many other carriers charge you)....you will then be able to get through enlinea a US 800 number which you can give to your families and friends so they can reach you 24/7...cost to them is free cost to you is 12¢/minute timed as above.

I notice sometimes you suggest www.callbackworld.com – what’s the difference between that and enlinea?

Am I on the right track? I leave in 2 weeks – do I have enough time to do all of this?

What about the time you're in the UK without him? Two phones and a UK sim perhaps.

As far as enlinea, they have drastically raised their rates involving Liechtenstein mobiles and they are no longer a viable option.

Callbackworld has not raised their rates as of this writing...therefore I would go with callbackworld....rates are 14¢/minute as opposed to 12¢ same billing interval (6 second intervals)...their 800 number requires a pin but otherwise the services are very close.

You might consider a UK sim while in the UK, they are dirt cheap right now and might wish to look into mobile world which charges only 5p per minute to call the USA except for a brief period early evenings when it rises to 7.5 p per minute.

Hope that helps.

I'm not xzy123, but can give my 2 cents in the mean time until he answers.

Since your countries are limited, I'd just skip the united account and get sim's for the country you are in. Some people have reported a few problems in some countries such as Germany with a riiing card. Fewer hastles with a local number and incoming calls from enlinea or callbackworld accounts will be free.

I think enlinea and callback world may now be owned by the same company. I have accounts with both of them and when calling support within the last month got DTI Rapid Link for both of them.

The only downside about getting sim cards over there will be that you won't know your phone number until you buy it. You could then leave a message at the hotel for the spouse. Of course, one quick phone call while roaming in Germany with the British sim card to give the new number shouldn't be too expensive. You will also have to call callbackworld support to change the callback number to the new sim. They can do that in minutes, but it will take several days to ADD a new account number. If planning on switching back between several sims, set up several dummie numbers in advance so you can quickly change them to the proper numbers.

My daughter just returned from studying a semester in Luxembourg and wound up with 4 different country sim cards because she needed to send and recieve a number of local calls as she travelled in addition to using callback.

Yes, we will definitely need 2 seperate phones.

So I could stick with a UK SIM card and he could wait to get a Germany one. He leaves for Germany same day as I go to Scotland. So when we are both in UK we will only need to use my phone.

zxy - you mentioned buying the Nokia 1100 but it is only GSM 850/1900 MHz. I thought I needed a tri-band phone. Am I missing something?

thanks

You don't <i>necessarily</i> need a tri-band or a quad-band - a dual-band will do. The only requirement for getting coverage everywhere in Europe it's possible is that the bands you have include 900 and 1800.

So (for example), the Siemens S46 has four bands, but the only one that works in Europe is GSM900. So it won't work everywhere in every country, because although it has three other bands, it doesn't have GSM1800.

A phone that has nothing but GSM850 and GSM1900 will <u>only</u> work in North America.

I think I will sign my daughter's cell phone (staying in the USA)up for international calls - $3.99/mth. Calls to land phones (my hotels) are only $0.06/min.

I'll buy a cheap phone when I get to UK with minutes so I can make local UK calls. I'll also buy a calling card over there to use from a pay phone or hotel to call USA or my husband in Germany.

I think I should be able to send a text message for less than $1 each.

My husband can do the same when he gets to Germany. Get a local phone and a calling card.

If seems like a ridiculous way to go - please let me know