sparkie12

Hi, I'm moving to Phoenix for a year at the start of November. I currently own a unlocked I phone 4. can anyone advise if you can get sim only(micro sim for the I phone)contracts with unlimited Internet/ 3G use? Also does anyone know if a uk I phone 4 will actually work with a us sim card?

Thanks for your help

Weeze

Hiya and welcome.
I had a UK iphone and looked into using it in the US. The 1st issue is you can't get a contract without a social security number. Secondly, the Iphone in the US is in my opinion a rip off. You have to pay for each bit of the package separately, so you pay for a calling bit, a texting bit and an internet usage bit. The cheapest contract price is $100/month. I paid 30 pounds a month for everything with Tesco in the UK so I wasn't willing to pay such a big amount for the same thing in the US. Mine wasnt unlocked though so I didn't have the choice of networks. I think you can get it cheaper when you have unlocked it, but I'm sure someone will be along soon that knows more about it.

fatbrit

Forget it! In theory, it might work with AT&T or T-Mobile. In practice, they're unlikely to give you a contract plan if you're only here for a year on a temporary visa, and their data plans for PAYG will be very expensive.

If you're going to be a heavy data user and only here for a short time, get a Boost mobile no-contract plan. You'll need to buy a phone, but you can flog it on craigslist before you leave since it won't work outside the US.

BTW, the US has one of the most overpriced cellular services in the world

sparkie12

Thanks for the info.

My only real use for it would be to FaceTime family back home. So may just put the phone on airplane mode and use as an i pod and only activate while in a wifi zone. I was hoping that like O2 in the uk someone had tapped into the x I phone 3 expired contracts market and offered a rolling contract sim card.

fatbrit

Welcome to corporatism!

You'll find plenty of free wifi, though.

Weeze

Virgin mobile is good value as well (for the US anyway!)

fatbrit

Yep -- Virgin Mobile and Boost are both the PAYG arm of Sprint these days.

Duncan Roberts

Probably legal issues with that, plus since you have to sign 2 year contracts and the 3G iPhone only came out in the middle of 2008 and was still being sold heavily this year and is still being sold, most of the contracts haven't expired. A lot of the people who have expired contracts were the early adopter, mega fan type folks who jumped to the iPhone 4 and signed another 2 year contract.

NatashaB

I use my English Iphone 3GS in the US. I got O2 to unlock it before I left but had to jailbreak it to get it to work over here. I have an O2 Wireless Sim Card (not the same as O2 in England, seems to be Best Buys own prepaid phone network as I haven't seen the topups for sale anywhere else). I am on the lookout for a good value monthly contract rather than buying PAYG topups but haven't really seen any so far - it's expensive here, especially if you want unlimited data. Basically I only use mine at home on the wireless network as you mentioned. I also bought an AT&T PAYG Sim card which worked fine in the phone too after jailbreaking it.

Can you jailbreak the iphone 4?

S Folinsky

I-phones in the US are limited to AT&T wireless. There are strong rumors about Verizon Wireless having I-phones within the next year. However, Verizon uses the CDMA networks while AT&T uses GSM. [Note: G-3 or G-4 does NOT indicate use of GSM in the US. Verizon has a G-3 network on CDMA]. In other words, no SIMS for Verizon phones [my AT&T BlackBerry has a SIM, the Verizon BB's do not]. So you will be stuck with AT&T Wireless.

By the way, I use an old BlackBerry Pearl which one of my daughters gave when she became an I-Phone Girl. [Elder daughter owns an unlocked Nexus-One and simply used her pre-existing T-Mobile account].

Everybody hates the cell phone companies in the US. However, you should remember that the US business model is quite different than that of the UK. First of all -- terminology -- an American is much more likely to use "cell phone" rather than "mobile phone." However, "mobile" is become more common as time goes on.

Second -- the radio telephone service first developed as an adjunct to the old land-line regulated monopolies. In fact, an 80 year old dial telephone with the appropriate plug adapter will still work on the land line system. However, the early mobiles were treated as if they were part of the land-line system but the phone owner was charged for "air-time" for access to the land network. Similarly, the lessor of the land phone was charged extra for a "private line" instead of the common "party line" for outgoing calls.

Bottom line: mobile minutes are charged for both incoming and outgoing calls. Before you start screaming at the unfairness of it all, Americans are shocked that one has to pay to call into a mobile in the UK. That said, "unlimited minutes" plans are becoming much more common.

Also, the US now allows for unlimited portability of telephone numbers. My BlackBerry has a phone number which had been a land line for 45 years. [In fact, I still think of the prefix as "DUnkirk 6 -" rather than "386-", but I digress]. Again, the US does not have "mobile only" telephone exchanges.

Also, as to the mention of a "contract" -- the US business model is that the mobile companies will subsidize the purchase of the phone in exchange for a contract [generally two years]. However, if you already own the phone and it will work on the US system, there is no contract.

My AT&T Blackberry has no contract in place. However, I can upgrade for "free" or low charge by purchase of a new phone -- but then I would get a contract.

Another poster is correct that the companies tend to bill separately for services. I have unlimited phone and unlimited data. I do not use texting, so I chose not pay for it. Every so often, I will get a text from someone -- and it costs me $0.10. However, that is very rare.

By the way, with the profusion of smart phones, the data networks have gone from surplus to heavily used and stressed. AT&T has now gone to tiered service -- which has people upset. But AT&T did give advance warning and it grandfathers those who already had unlimited data service.

I have no idea if your UK phone will work in the US. You might want to check with Apple.

Hubcaps

Why did you have to jailbreak it? My iPhone worked perfectly over here (also unlocked by O2). Just interested.

S Folinsky

Did you get a standard AT&T Wireless monthly account? [Not a contract, but a monthly account?] Natasha is talking about SIM cars for other than that.

The jailbreak is required to get non-Apple approved apps and other things.

I know my BlackBerry is different -- no need to even unlock it. When I opened my account, all that was needed was a new SIM. The weird part was in porting an AT&T land line. They allowed dial out porting immediately and the caller ID would show my phone number. However, it took four business days to port the receiving function! And that phone number had stared with the old Pacific Bell Telco which then became Pacific Telesis, the Pac Bell and then SBC and now AT&T.

Hubcaps

No, I have a contract with mine.
I understand what jailbreaking is, I just wondered why she had to do it to get the phone to work.

NatashaB

I thought that unlocking alone would work - O2 in the UK told me it would. Both my husband (who has a 3G) and I found that we just got a 'sim card not recognised' type error when we put a US sim in the phones though, hence why we tried the jailbreaking. Neither the AT&T or the O2 Wireless sims worked until we jailbroke them.

Hubcaps

Weird, I had no problems at all with mine, it was a 3G too.