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? |
All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:53 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
TravelBanter.com