annabellee

hiya,
im moving to chicago in february on a university placement and wondering if anyone has any advice on american mobile phone networks, do they have pay as you go? also have a blackberry currently if i was to get it unlocked do you recon i could put an american sim card in and it would work?
cheers

Bob

Is the blackberry tri band? if it were quad band it would work, tri band would probably work but might be scratchy.

There is PAYG systems here, but they tend to be a bit rubbish compared to what your used to.

I use a tracfone which does the job for me as I hardly use it, but you won't be able to use your old phone for it.

AT&T do sim cards, don't know what their coverage is like in Chicago though.

Oh and welcome to BE

annabellee

thanx for ur help, yeah its quad band inmconsidering getting a t -mobile contract becasue then i can use it here then switch to t-mobile us wen i go, any ideas on the network coverage for that in chiacgo?

penguinsix

AT&T and TMobile are the two big GSM carriers. Verizon is CDMA (non-SIM card though--hardwired into the handsets). Pay as you go exists but isn't the greatest.

Here is a GSM frequency guide to the US. Make sure your phone can handle whatever carrier you get in the US

http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_us.shtml

Here is Tmobile's map

http://www.t-mobile.com/COVERAGE/

annabellee

thanx for ur help

Bob

T-mobile US is a seperate company, not a simple case of switching contracts and not having a US credit history means a large deposit on a contract phone.

Also, you don't get charged by the letter to post on the forum, so you might want to use them

Patzy

When I moved to Ca in 2005 Verizon Wireless charged $800 deposit for a contract phone, which they returned 1 year later.

emailrob

My advice would be get a $20 phone from Target when you're here, it'll be expensive to use (50c a minute, 25c for texts or similar) but you need time to settle and see what works for you. We did that for a month or two, then moved my OH to a contract iPhone. We didn't have to pay a deposit, but had to put it in my name as she had no credit score.

wtkp0u

See also
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=631149

Chicago has reasonable TMob coverage, and PAYG for 10c/min

hobbes79

I've gotten T-mobile SIMs from ebay before. Good to get out of trouble between contracts. I also recommend them for people coming over on vacation even, since they're so much cheaper than international roaming.

Example here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tmobile-prepaid-...item4a9bbb3493

Cowboy Tough

Annie, I don't know exactly what a blueberry is but I've gone from Yellowknife in the Northern Territories to as far south to mule accessible only gold mining camps in Matamoros, Mexico and Verizon has never let me down with my cellular. And the one time they did let me down I complained and got a $5 credit on my next bill

Steerpike

T-Mo are definitely the cheapest carrier that supports GSM. Their customer service is also pretty good (they actually drive me nuts with their enforced cheeriness, but at least they are enthusiastic and English speaking!). Their network coverage is a distant third behind Verizon and ATT, but if you stick to major metropolitan areas you'll be fine. I've had T-Mo service for about 8 years now alongside VZW and ATT work phones, and feel qualified to make the comparison!

In the good-old days, it was easy to simply move a SIM from one phone to another; but now you have blackberrys, Smartphones, iPhones, etc it's no longer quite as simple. The 'Data' element is not quite as easily transferred. If you want your blackberry to continue to get email/etc you'll need to figure out how to config. the phone for different data sources, and - you'd better watch how much it costs to get data on a 'pay as you go' service. Have they standardized this yet (eg, 1 kilobyte = 1 minute, or similar)?

Bob

blueberry is just a type of phone, verizon don't use a sim card so not much use to the OP if they want to use their current phone.

Steerpike - depends on the service, some of them have a set rate per day, some have a set data allowance etc and it really does vary by region on that front.

BritishGuy36

Having used both here, quite franky I don't trust CDMA networks (e.g. Alltel/Verizon). Too many network issues.

Once my two year contract runs out I will be off to AT&T, even though it's more expensive.

The only thing that could tempt me to stay is if Google partners with Verizon for hosting their Google-branded phone service (which I speculate will happen as an expansion of the Google Voice call management service).

Folinskyinla

Hi:

Other's will tell you the various issues involved. Personally, I've been using Verizon CDMA for POTS for years and coverage has been good -- I used it last year in Canada, but added Canada to my service for an extra $8 per month and then cancelled the service when I came back -- idea was to avoid roaming while in Canada.

I will leave the compatability and credit issues to others. However, one thing I would like to bring to your attention -- unless you are on a flat rate system, you pay for airtime in the US. IOW, the phone owner pays whether she is calling or receiving calls. However, there is no charge to the person calling into the system. However, the per minutes rates are a lot less.

So, it takes a somewhat different mindset in evaluating the various plans. There have been heated debates on "WTF" which is rooted in the underlying assumption that "the US is crazy for doing it different." [BTW, Americans living in Europe feel the opposite -- why is EU so different, but I digress]. No need to get into that debate -- the difference exists for historical reasons.