OT? photographer looking for cell phone plan that works many places

Hi,
I travel a lot for my job and my photography.
I'm looking for a cell phone plan based in the US that
will also work in Europe, and ideally Australia and
New Zealand. Where, I live, Colorado USA, the mountains
block a lot of digital signals, so analog mode is
a necessity too. If any of you know of a solution
to my problem, let me know.

Roger

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:
Hi,
I travel a lot for my job and my photography.
I'm looking for a cell phone plan based in the US that
will also work in Europe, and ideally Australia and
New Zealand. Where, I live, Colorado USA, the mountains
block a lot of digital signals, so analog mode is
a necessity too. If any of you know of a solution
to my problem, let me know.

Roger


europe, asia, australia and new zeeland primarily use GSM on 900MHz and 1800MHz.
some north american networks use PCS 1900MHz (sometimes called GSM 1900).
many phones sold in europe can use all three frequency bands. (tripple band
phones, ask any salesman in europe or look at the specification for the phone).

GSM works in a range up to some 25km, so you will not find GSM in unpopulated
places, then you will need to look for something else. a few european counties
still use the analog NMT in parallel with GSM (probably sweden, norway, iceland,
finland) but the GSM-coverage in europe is almost alwas better then NMT, even in
remote areas.
from experiance of hiking in sweden and norway, you might end up without
coverage for a day or two, but rearly for longer then that. all major roads and
aras close to such roads have coverage.

in south america i think they use IDEN, but i know nothing about it.

anyway, what you are looking for is a company near you that uses PCS 1900 plus a
phone that is a so called tripple band phone (at least nokia and ericsson has
such phones).
check with your the phone company that provides PCS 1900, they should know if
their their subscribers can use their phones in europe/austraila/new z.

AT&T and T-mobile i think could be two companies that you can ask, iirc they
have GSM 1900.

stig wrote:
Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:

Hi,
I travel a lot for my job and my photography.
I'm looking for a cell phone plan based in the US that
will also work in Europe, and ideally Australia and
New Zealand. Where, I live, Colorado USA, the mountains
block a lot of digital signals, so analog mode is
a necessity too. If any of you know of a solution
to my problem, let me know.

Roger


europe, asia, australia and new zeeland primarily use GSM on 900MHz and
1800MHz.
some north american networks use PCS 1900MHz (sometimes called GSM 1900).
many phones sold in europe can use all three frequency bands. (tripple
band phones, ask any salesman in europe or look at the specification for
the phone).

GSM works in a range up to some 25km, so you will not find GSM in
unpopulated places, then you will need to look for something else. a few
european counties still use the analog NMT in parallel with GSM
(probably sweden, norway, iceland, finland) but the GSM-coverage in
europe is almost alwas better then NMT, even in remote areas.
from experiance of hiking in sweden and norway, you might end up without
coverage for a day or two, but rearly for longer then that. all major
roads and aras close to such roads have coverage.

in south america i think they use IDEN, but i know nothing about it.

anyway, what you are looking for is a company near you that uses PCS
1900 plus a phone that is a so called tripple band phone (at least nokia
and ericsson has such phones).
check with your the phone company that provides PCS 1900, they should
know if their their subscribers can use their phones in
europe/austraila/new z.

AT&T and T-mobile i think could be two companies that you can ask, iirc
they have GSM 1900.


i need to add the following.

when in europe you should remember that it is quite expensive to call between
different countries from a mobile phone (from regular phone is cheap).

if all your calles are invoiced back to US, then you might have fair prices
anyway, but if you plan to call a lot in europe it might be an idea to buy a
"cash card"/"prepaid card" (no invoice, no subscription, just buy the card and
you will get a number) in every country. this will allow you to call
considerably cheaper within that country. observe that such card unfortunatly
may not work in other countries then the one bought in.

the largest mobile network company in europe i think is vodafone. they might
have "cash cards" that work in all their networks no matter which country.

Short answer: there is no cheap/easy way to achieve this.
Long answer: As already mentioned, GSM is the standard pretty much
everywhere but the USA. For traveling in Europe I purchased an
"unlocked" tri-band GSM phone that allows me to purchase pre-paid SIM
cards in each country (I usually travel mostly in Germany and Austria,
so this wasn't a big deal). It would also be possible to have service
in the USA through a GSM-based provider like T-Mobile. I bought my
Motorola GSM phone (unlocked) through a Web vendor, but can't remember
the name. It was around $125 or so. One nice thing about most European
mobile plans is that all incoming calls are free. So, if most of your
calls are incoming, you're in good shape. However, those calls aren't
truly "free," as a surcharge is tacked onto the caller's rate when
calling a mobile phone. This could really annoy someone who wasn't
aware of this charge.

One interesting plan I just found through Google is at
http://www.ustronics.com/trpa.html. Looks to be a Europe-wide prepaid
phone plan. I don't know anything about it, but am going to investigate
it further.

Also, do a search of the archives of rec.travel.europe. This topic
comes up often, and there have been some very good posts on the subject.

BrianW wrote:
calls are incoming, you're in good shape. However, those calls aren't
truly "free," as a surcharge is tacked onto the caller's rate when
calling a mobile phone. This could really annoy someone who wasn't
aware of this charge.

FYI .. That's why European cell phones have easy recognizable phone
numbers so you are not going to get a surprise.

Martin

I'm sure they are easily recognizable to those of you who are in
Europe, but most of us in the USA have no idea if we're calling a
European phone mobile number or not.

Martin Djern=E6s wrote:
FYI .. That's why European cell phones have easy recognizable phone
numbers so you are not going to get a surprise.
=20
Martin

On 1 Feb 2005 12:30:17 -0800, "BrianW" wrote:

Short answer: there is no cheap/easy way to achieve this.
Long answer: As already mentioned, GSM is the standard pretty much
everywhere but the USA. For traveling in Europe I purchased an
"unlocked" tri-band GSM phone that allows me to purchase pre-paid SIM
cards in each country (I usually travel mostly in Germany and Austria,
so this wasn't a big deal). It would also be possible to have service
in the USA through a GSM-based provider like T-Mobile. I bought my
Motorola GSM phone (unlocked) through a Web vendor, but can't remember
the name. It was around $125 or so. One nice thing about most European
mobile plans is that all incoming calls are free. So, if most of your
calls are incoming, you're in good shape. However, those calls aren't
truly "free," as a surcharge is tacked onto the caller's rate when
calling a mobile phone. This could really annoy someone who wasn't
aware of this charge.

One interesting plan I just found through Google is at
http://www.ustronics.com/trpa.html. Looks to be a Europe-wide prepaid
phone plan. I don't know anything about it, but am going to investigate
it further.

Also, do a search of the archives of rec.travel.europe. This topic
comes up often, and there have been some very good posts on the subject.

Cingular...gsm phone is $50.00..which you get back on rebate.
Negotiate the plan to suit your needs. Best of all...they're union.

rgds

Ken

Hi,

BrianW wrote:
I'm sure they are easily recognizable to those of you who are in
Europe,

To the ones in the country - each country have their one area codes
(numer series) for their cell phones.

but most of us in the USA have no idea if we're calling a
European phone mobile number or not.

That's why all (serious) providers in the US list the charges per area
code ... and I for sure check the price before calling as I have found
that some very cheap providers will take eg. 3-5 c/min for a call to
Germany, but $1/min if the receiver is a cell phone.

Martin

I've looked at both Sprint's and AT&T's rate for international calls,
and both only list prices by country. I can't imagine any more
"serious" providers than them! I imagine, if pressed, that they would
provide area code pricing, but it's not readily available.

Hi Brian,

BrianW wrote:
I've looked at both Sprint's and AT&T's rate for international calls,
and both only list prices by country. I can't imagine any more
"serious" providers than them! I imagine, if pressed, that they would
provide area code pricing, but it's not readily available.

Sorry I didn't want this to be a basing of phone providers et al, but
just information to you. I have used MCI, neither sprint nor ATT, for
international calls and they are at least only trying to cheat you for
your money. They might be serious phone companies, but what I really
wanted to say was "companies who seriously try to marked themselves to
people who call internationally, especially to the european contries".

If you want/need them I can try to get you some of the most well known
area codes of cell phones in some of the european contries.

Martin