Cell phone for European travel
 

This question is mostly for the USians on the group but anyone else is,
naturally, welcome to chime in.


I need advice on a CHEAP way to have a cell phone available for travel in
Europe. It doesn't have to be fancy (God, please let's not get into another
****ing contest over the glories of smart phones!). All it has to do is make
and receive voice calls.

Some years ago I got a bottom-of-the-line Motorola C123 from CallInEurope.com
operating out of Connecticut somewhere. $60 complete w a French SIM and all the
doo-dads; I lent it to someone and they lost it :-(

CIE seems to have gone out of business, but if they were still around, I'd pick
up another just like it.

Any alternative suggestions?



FrankC
(chg Arabic# to Roman to reply)

Cell phone for European travel
 

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:16:46 -0400, Frank Clarke
:
I need advice on a CHEAP way to have a cell phone available for
travel in

If you're visiting several countries on your trip, don't bother.
Firstly, initial SIM registration may take several days. Secondly,
you'd be roaming anyway.
So, bring your US phone and give it a try, first.

On top of that, many countries still show phone booths at street
corners.

--
Erick

Cell phone for European travel
 

On 20/08/2013 20:15, Erick T. Barkhuis wrote:
Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:16:46 -0400, Frank Clarke :
I need advice on a CHEAP way to have a cell phone available for
travel in

If you're visiting several countries on your trip, don't bother.
Firstly, initial SIM registration may take several days.

not in my experience

Cell phone for European travel
 

On Tue, 20 Aug 2013 21:15:42 +0200, Erick T. Barkhuis
wrote:


Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:16:46 -0400, Frank Clarke
:
I need advice on a CHEAP way to have a cell phone available for
travel in

If you're visiting several countries on your trip, don't bother.
Firstly, initial SIM registration may take several days. Secondly,
you'd be roaming anyway.
So, bring your US phone and give it a try, first.

On top of that, many countries still show phone booths at street
corners.

My US phone is CDMA -- guaranteed not to work in Europe.

I will need a new phone. The base question is "Where to get an inexpensive
unlocked GSM phone and cheap service for Europe?" Lots of companies offer the
service -- I can look that up online -- but what do you experts opine?


FrankC
(chg Arabic# to Roman to reply)

Cell phone for European travel
 

Frank Clarke writes:


This question is mostly for the USians on the group but anyone else is,
naturally, welcome to chime in.


I need advice on a CHEAP way to have a cell phone available for travel in
Europe. It doesn't have to be fancy (God, please let's not get into another
****ing contest over the glories of smart phones!). All it has to do is make
and receive voice calls.

Last time I did this I got a cheap but durable motorola quad-band pay
as you go phone from tmobile far enough in advance so that tmobile
would unlock it for me. At that time, their policy was that they
would unlock phones after 3 months.

I still have the phone and my family uses it when someone's phone
breaks/gets lost.

The time before I bought a Cingular (yes it was a while ago) phone a
week before my trip, and got someone on the internet to unlock it for
me for $5. I later lost that phone.

You can do the analogous thing easily, though with some risk (small
one hopes). For example, Walmart sells the Nokia 1616, which is
quadband but probably comes locked to tmobile. But there are services
on the internet that claim to be able to unlock it for a small number
of dollars. I don't know to figure out which of these places are
legit, but I've been able to hit legit merchants so far, and $2 (what
I recently paid to "factory unlock" my iPhone 3GS) is an acceptable
risk.

Cell phone for European travel
 

Erick T. Barkhuis wrote:
Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:16:46 -0400, Frank Clarke :
I need advice on a CHEAP way to have a cell phone available for travel in

If you're visiting several countries on your trip, don't bother. Firstly,
initial SIM registration may take several days. Secondly, you'd be roaming anyway.
So, bring your US phone and give it a try, first.

On top of that, many countries still show phone booths at street corners.

I don't remember seeing any at all on recent trips 8-(



--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist with iPad

Cell phone for European travel
 

Erilar:

Erick T. Barkhuis wrote:

On top of that, many countries still show phone booths at street
corners.

I don't remember seeing any at all on recent trips 8-(

Where did you look?
For instance, in Germany, almost every village and town has one or more
pink 'Deutsche Telekom" booths. These are usually just half booths, a
metal pole with a sign and a pink/silver phone. This is what they look
like:
http://media.billiger-telefonieren.de/13/239.jpg
Any geocacher will be able to point you to these, because many of them
are hiding places.
In Belgium, you can't miss these:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...elefoonkot.JPG

Side note: in Bad Zwischenahn, a closed, yellow phone booth is now in
use as a free public library. An amazing sight!

--
Erick

Cell phone for European travel
 

On Tue, 20 Aug 2013 19:03:30 -0400, Frank Clarke wrote in post :
:

I will need a new phone. The base question is "Where to get an inexpensive
unlocked GSM phone and cheap service for Europe?" Lots of companies offer the
service -- I can look that up online -- but what do you experts opine?

There are thousands of second-hand cellphone shops. You can get a cheap
phone there, and get a SIM that will work with it almost immediately.
It's generally simpler to get a pre-paid SIM - for example from
3/Hutchinson, as you shouldn't need any documentation.



--
Tim C. Linz, Austria.

Cell phone for European travel
 

On Tue, 20 Aug 2013 20:57:29 +0100, Mike O'Sullivan wrote in post :
:

On 20/08/2013 20:15, Erick T. Barkhuis wrote:
Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:16:46 -0400, Frank Clarke :
I need advice on a CHEAP way to have a cell phone available for
travel in

If you're visiting several countries on your trip, don't bother.
Firstly, initial SIM registration may take several days.

not in my experience

Mine neither. Never ever, not even years ago when mobile phones were teh
size of a shoebox. It might take 20 minutes or so - if you want a
contracted phone/SIM, but for pre-paid it takes as long as it takes to hand
over your money.

--
Tim C. Linz, Austria.

Cell phone for European travel
 

Tim C.:

On Tue, 20 Aug 2013 20:57:29 +0100, Mike O'Sullivan wrote in post :
:

On 20/08/2013 20:15, Erick T. Barkhuis wrote:

Firstly, initial SIM registration may take several days.

not in my experience

Mine neither.

I start wondering...have you guys ever actually tried to get across the
pond as a US citizen and buy/register a new SIM in Western Europe?