Mobile Phone
 

Hi,
When I move to California next year I want to take my current UK mobile as it is tri-band. Can I buy a SIM pay as you go card for it? I cant find any on the Internet.
Suggestions please :confused:

Re: Mobile Phone
 

As you make reference to a SIM, I'm assuming you're talking about GSM. GSM is very new in the US and is currently only offered by AT&T with a very small coverage area. There are big plans for it however, so by next year you may have better luck.

Unless your phone is one of those combined PDA/cellphone thingies it's probably not worth trying to get it working here. There are plenty of cheap and even free PCS digital phones about.

Tri-band normally means digital/analog and CDMA I think so it should work fine.

I am in California so next time I am at the mall will see if they do the pay as you go. I know there is a big push to get onto a plan here, and many have given up their land lines and rely solely on their cell phones.

Re: Mobile Phone
 

When I started the process to move to Tennessee, I enquired about the same. The only people in the US who do SIMs for my lovely Nokia 8890 are T Mobile. And then only in their shops.

I am sure there will be a shop near to you.

I was looking for either a pay as you go agreement or a family deal however each one wanted to give me a new and fairly crappy phone which was not tri-band.

Let me know how you get on.

Tigger

Your probably better off just getting a new pay as you go deal in the US, you may or may not be able to swap out the sim into your phone as it may be sim locked. Even if its not sim locked it may have roaming restrictions if you want to use in abroad (outside us) so I would check into that as well (PAYG usually don't allow you to roam)

http://www.best-free-cellular-phone....lar-phone.html

PAYG is very new in the states and this why you have hit walls of confusion. The deals I found where in the sunday papers so it may be worth looking in those.

Patrick (Nokia employee - although the first to ask me about their mobile/cell phone gets a kick in head)

Re, your UK Mob. Probably not worth the effort. As some one said above, phone would need be fully SIM unlocked. Also not all RF,s used by all companies. So you may be limited. GSM coverage is sparse. Prepaid sims here are the worst deals around. In CA you will get great deals from AT&T, TMobile, Cingular, Verizon or even a local carrier. $39.99 + tx =$50 a month will get you 500-800 anytime minutes + unlimited evenings & weekends. AT&T will allow you to bring your own GSM phone. Not sure about the others.
Go to this Site, all the knowledge on phones you ever needed.

http://howardforums.com/

Reg. frank R.

As far as I know T-mobile are the only GSM mobile company in the US, AT&T have started to roll out some GSM services in NYC area.

I looked into pre-paid SIM's (T-mobile AKA VoiceStream) when I was in the States in July and the offers were, well pretty bad, remember they charge you there to receive calls as well.

What I'd do if I were you is sign up with T-mobile when you get there, just take the 'plan' if you don't need a new phone. They do free roaming and free weekend calls to.

Also they are the only company which allow you to Text message the rest of the world (and the only one in the USA which UK residence can text from their mobiles)

Have a great time ;)

Patrick,

is there a Nokia phone available with optional pirate fascia?

;)

Debbie

http://www.mobiles.co.uk/3310_xp3.html

Yes

Patrick

:eek: I am totally lost for words!! :eek:

Debbie

As of Friday I am an ex-Nokia employee as I was made redundant. I now have a Seimans phone the first time ever someone in my family has not had a Nokia - but it was free and I will be in the US in February so I can get myself another Nokia.

Patrick

Nokia
 

Hey Patrick,
Did you work for Nokia? I did too, but I worked at the service centre. Are you a qualified service engineer?

Suggestions
 

So long as your gsm phone works on a 1900 waveband (not used in the UK) it will also work in the USA. As others have posted T-Mobile is a source of SIMS and now ATTWireless are converting to GSM also Cingular offers gsm service. Other gsm operators are much more local and probably not worth considering.

I suggest ypu start with a prepaid SIM but then once you are settled look at all the other deals around.
GSMPhones are now moving into gprs and the new phones are nicely discounted for new users. You will need a Social Security number and as your credit in the usa will be unknown you may need to give a deposit before signing (returnable within one year).

Give some consideration for moving away from gsm (though keep your phone for future uk travel). SprintPCS provides an excellent service using the cdma system as does Verizon Wireless (45% owned by Vodapone).

Me, I have 4 phones on SprintPCS and gave up on T-Mobile because the coverage on PCS and the Plans were far superior. Only downside is that cdma operators are slow moving towards compatibility with SMS. But this will happen very soon.

As a follow up to IanR.
I have a Siemens S46 on AT&T Wireless network. The phone is $99 minus $100 mail in rebate, they pay you 1c to buy it. REBATES, that will take you some time to get used to. This is the only phone with AT&T that is GSM/TDMA/GPRS (I think it's the only tri-band – Multi-band phone in USA or the World). I got this new phone when AT&T went GSM in Mid October. AT&T GSM has some coverage across the country, big cities only. My S46 will switch to TDMA when can't find GSM. Certainly will be helpful until GSM is more prevalent. AT&T intend to convert their TDMA service to GSM/GPRS. Will take many years, USA 3 million plus Sq. miles, so lot of area to cover. England 46,000 sq. miles.

REG. Frank R.

As far as I know Tri-band is the frequency 900/1800/1900mhz or 850/1900/900mhz. We do not use 900mhz in USA, it is alreay being used by 900mhz cordless phones. 900 mhz is only being used on USA GSM phones when used abroad.

Multi-band means GSM/ TDMA or CDMA/analogue or Digital(PCS)/analogue.

SEE THIS PAGE FOR VARIOUS COVERAGE AT&T. Price plans will vary dependent on your home address.

http://attws.com/mobileinternet/rateplans.jhtml

Frank R.