Cell Phone for Europe

D

DWK2

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Nov 3, 2003
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My sister and her husband just got a long-term work assignment near Stuttgart. When I save enough to overcome the brutal Euro exchange rate, I plan to go for an extended visit. I turned in my company Verizon cell phone so I'm open to purchasing whatever would work over there. I'd like to be able to use it in Eastern as well as Western Europe.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

DancesWithKnives
 
If I remember correctly you need a tri-band phone that operates on the GSM system. That would be t-mobile or AT&T. Then when you get to Europe all you need to do is buy a pay-as-you-go SIM card for your phone.
 
If you dont want to get another contract, get a simple mobile off EBay that can take a GSM Sim card. When you get to Germany, do as the other poster suggested and buy a pay-as-you-go package and put the SIM into your phone. Do not use an AT&T or T-Mobile phone number overseas, the roaming charges are ridiculously high and it will cost you a fortune. I have had T-Mobile for 2 years and just changed over to AT&T here in the US because my monthly charges were sometimes over $400 due to roaming, and that was in the US, not even overseas. Virginmobile seems to have a lot of pay-as-you-go packages and here in the US they will even give you a basic phone in the package too. I have used Vodafone and Telefonika in Europe and they worked well.

The weather in Summer will be great but for a real treat with a difference, go visit them early in December and visit the Christmas markets in the different towns. I did it a couple of years ago and loved it, really good food, gluhwein and unique gifts. A wonderful experience and different to anything I had experienced before. Enjoy your visit.
 
jabberwockg said:
If you dont want to get another contract, get a simple mobile off EBay that can take a GSM Sim card. When you get to Germany, do as the other poster suggested and buy a pay-as-you-go package and put the SIM into your phone. Do not use an AT&T or T-Mobile phone number overseas, the roaming charges are ridiculously high and it will cost you a fortune. I have had T-Mobile for 2 years and just changed over to AT&T here in the US because my monthly charges were sometimes over $400 due to roaming, and that was in the US, not even overseas. Virginmobile seems to have a lot of pay-as-you-go packages and here in the US they will even give you a basic phone in the package too. I have used Vodafone and Telefonika in Europe and they worked well.

The weather in Summer will be great but for a real treat with a difference, go visit them early in December and visit the Christmas markets in the different towns. I did it a couple of years ago and loved it, really good food, gluhwein and unique gifts. A wonderful experience and different to anything I had experienced before. Enjoy your visit.
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+1 on that... definitely stay away from international roaming !

Get a quad-band GSM phone and it will work almost anywhere in the world (don't let anyone tell you a tri-band will suffice). I have an unlocked Motorola Razor and SIM cards for six or seven different countries in Europe and South America. It's very important that it be unlocked; you can't just put any old SIM card in it, that means buying it without a service package, and it usually means paying a bit more for the phone as it's not subsidized by the provider. A SIM card in Europe (I used my Norwegian SIM card in Germany last year) is usually free, or almost free, (maybe $10) when you get a pre-paid package. If you already have a quad band GSM phone your provider may unlock it for you for a fee ($20-$30), if not (some providers refuse to do it), you can take it in to a mobile phone shop and get someone there to unlock it. Having it unlocked at a shop that is not your provider will in no way effect the way the phone currently works, when you return from your trip you can put your original SIM card back in and it will work exactly the same.

Tiger Direct is a good cheap source of unlocked phones, I bought both mine and my wife's last unlocked phones from Cell Speed in Toronto.
 
Great advice---thanks for all your help!!

Last time I visited I had a wonderful time in Germany. The only disappointment was when we went to a supposedly prominent gun shop in a major city. My brother-in-law looked around for a few seconds and remarked "they call this a gun shop---you have more than they do!".

DancesWithKnives
 
You could look at buying a pay as you go phone when you get here, certainly in the UK they are very cheap, less than £30
 
Indeed, you can get a basic PAYG phone in the UK for as little as 10 pounds. You can then have it unlocked for a further fiver. You can put any sim card you like in it then.
My sister lives in Germany and keeps a UK sim card (Orange) to slip into her German phone when she comes back to visit.
 
In Europe, you can buy cell phones anywhere, including grocery stores and hypermarts like Tesco and Auchon. Europeans went to using their cell phones as their primary phone long before we did over here because, back in the day, the gummint owned the land line phone companies and charged dearly for the services, whihc were not as good as what we had over here.
 
Thanks! It looks like this won't be difficult as long as I watch out for the potential traps that you all have been kind enough to warn me about.

Much appreciated,

DancesWithKnives
 
If you feel like spending hundreds of dollars that could otherwise be spent on knives, I'd pretty highly recommend the new BlackBerry Bold from AT&T. I just got mine a few days ago and love it. And it's truly global, GSM with a SIM card, so you'll have no hassles. Pricey little dingbat, but you can log onto BladeForums while you're in Germany with it.
 
That must be why RIMM stock has risen so much over the last week!

Thanks,

DancesWithKnives
 
In Europe the GSM system uses 900 or 1800 mhz (USA use 900 and 1900). However a cheap mobile with a prepaid card cost next to nothing (Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung whatever). A cheap Nokia 2610 prepaid is about 50 euros.
 
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