madmidwife

Can anyone tell me if a UK mobile will work in Saudi?

nottmbantam

Thanks for asking madmidwife, I was thinking the exact same thing. Wanted to take my UK phone with me, and perhaps buy a Saudi sim card out there, and maybe go on a Pay As You Go deal? Would help me to keep better track of how much I'm spending on phone bills.

Chris79

Any mobile phone will work anywhere as long as you unlock it first. I have brought both my uk phones over to the UAE, unlocked them and have put local sim cards in them.
You don't want to be using your UK sim cards over here. My first monthly UK bill was in excess of 500 english pounds!!

madmidwife

Thanks for the info

t19hlr

Most phones in the UK are now locked to the network provider unless you buy it without a contract. Just pop down to the local market and there's usually plenty of stalls for unlocking phones.
Chris I've had bad experiences using my UK network phone in Bahrain, but £500....thats crazy!!

Chris79

Tell me about it! I was using it for the first month for work. Any time anyone called me it cost me a 1.40 connection fee then a fortune for every minute your connected and it costed me a fortune to receive text messages. The gf kept texting me!! It's a lot better now that I have a local sim card. It's much cheaper to phone home and you don't get charged for receiving texts or calls

typical

The phone itself will work fine if it's unlocked.

I actually use two phones from the UK here. One still has my UK SIM in it, roaming. The other has a local PAYG SIM. The latter is far cheaper...

nottmbantam

Yes, my phone is locked onto Orange, but a quick call to them and they will 'sell' you an unlock code for £20, which they will either email or post to you.

Enter this into the phone and hey presto, its is now open to all networks.

AFAIK though, its specific to your IMEI no , so exclusively for a one off use.

typical

They don't have to do this if you're still in contract... it can then be cheaper to get it unlocked at your local market stall. Or just buy out your contract.

The unlock code is generally specific to the individual phone. Whether it's specific to the IMEI too is something that's up to the manufacturer and how they generate their unlock codes. For all intents and purposes it's the same thing, but not exactly. Anyway the point is write - unlock codes can't be used on multiple phones.

nottmbantam

Just got off the phone to Orange Customer Services. If I use my Orange phone out there in KSA, these are the charges:

Make a call to UK = £1.45 per min
Make a call internally in that country £1.45 pm

Receive a call: 90pence pm

Send a text: 50p each per text

Receive text : Free

Send video / pic message = £1.50 per message

Use GPRS ( internet / browsing / data ) = £8.00 per mb

Crikey, not surprised Chris was getting hefty bills... Will deffo get the phone unlocked and get a local sim card.

t19hlr

Thats crazy!!
I heard there is a sim card for the GCC which can be used in any of the countries and has very resonable rates no matter which country you are in, is this true?

Fairydust

I remember reading somewhere a while ago that camera phones were banned in KSA???????????? Not sure if I dreamt that one up or its true?

typical

I believe they were once upon a time (in a past life I worked on one of the first mainstream cameraphones - that was six years ago!), but certainly not any more.

typical

One weird thing is I can't send text messages from my Orange UK number when I'm roaming onto Al Jawal. Everything else works fine.

guywithstyle

it will work as long as you have roaming on, but they will charge you a lot for that, better to take your phone have it unlocked and just have a saudi chip put in.