Cheap Pay-as-you go SIM cards
 

Hi all,

We are travelling to Florida christmas eve for a fortnight. We do have mobile phones that will work in the States, but this will be very costly. We want to be able to keep in touch with each other at minimal cost.

So was wondering if anyone knew where we could get hold of a cheap pay-as-you go SIM card for our phones that we can just top-up whilst over there.

Are there any recommendations on service providers?

Thanks in anticipation

The cellphone situation here in US is somewhat different than the rest of the world.

Only a small minority of Americans own an unlocked mobile phone. Majority are still tied to one carrier with locked phones and yearly contracts. It is slowly changing but we're still year(s) away from having total freedom of changing carriers at will. Anyway, that is the main reason that SIM cards are not sold just about anywhere. At this time there is a very small market for the product.

There is hope. I do believe that T-Mobile does sell SIM cards as well as pre-paid cards. Look at T-Mobile US website for more info.

Remember that you will have to have a SIM-unlocked compatible GSM 1900 mobile phone.

There is an alternative. Many convienience stores (7-Eleven, etc) as well as electronic and department stores and mobile phone stores sell fairly inexpensive phones that are on a pre-paid plan. You will be tied up to one carrier once you buy the phone but it's very convienient to purchase recharge cards at any of the same locations. The phones range from $29 to above $100 and usually come with some time. The least expensive models will do the same job as the more expensive models, but usually they are the "bigger" ones and don't have many extra features. I don't think that's important to you.

So these are the 2 choices that I know of. Maybe others have more ideas.

Have a wonderful trip!


I would not buy from these people as they do charge "extra" but it's a good page to look at and get an idea of the T-Mobile prices and coverage.
<b>http://telestial.com/products/usa_prepaidsim_sim.htm</b>

On the Europe board, xyz123 or 123xyz discussed a work-around for this issue. Search there...

I purchased a cingular prepaid sim card to use for the same reasons as you and it worked great in both our phones (tri-bands).

AAFrequentFlyer offers an excellent suggestion about T-Mobile SIM cards (i.e. t-mobile to go). I bought an unlocked tri-band phone for use in Australia but, upon returning home to the U.S., purchased a t-mobile &quot;starter&quot; SIM card &amp; minutes and still use it 18 months later. Here is their web site &lt;http://www.t-mobile.com&gt;. Please be aware that, unlike many other countries, you will have to pay for incoming calls to the U.S.

If you want to order an inexpensive mobile phone via the internet, here is one possibility: &lt;http://tinyurl.com/ye9dsn&gt;. Target is offering a Virgin Mobile Kyocera K9 Pay-As-You-Go Wireless Phone for only $29. You might even be able to have it sent to your first night's hotel and held for your arrival.