Okay, so the bane of my existence – one of them, at least – is the ridiculous near-impossibility of using a cell phone from Canada overseas. I made the mistake of renewing a contract with Telus recently, opting for the cheapest phone because "I don’t need any of those fancy features like email or anything… "… well, now I’m stuck with a shitty phone that becomes an even shittier waste of space when I travel.
I bought a pre-paid phone in Frankfurt a few months ago, but it ran out of minutes. Conveniently, the phone is registered to the store that sold it to me, so even entering my credit card info on their site to add minutes to it won’t work – the billing can’t be verified since my address and name aren’t anywhere to be found. I only have a 30-minute layover in Munich tomorrow, and I don’t think I’ll have a chance of actually stopping at a kiosk to get a cash card for it…
I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that I’m going to need to get a new phone – possibly a Blackberry or some other smartphone. Any advice about which carrier I should go with? I see that Rogers has some internationally-useful phones, but their rates are quite high. What are my options here? Any quick advice would be appreciated, given that I’m heading off to France tomorrow morning.
Unlocked? There’s no locking on GSM phones to the best of my knowledge. You just need a GSM phone like most of the civilized world uses and you’ll be okay. Note that roaming charges for international roam can be killer so buying a local prepaid phone can sometimes still be the cheaper option, but at least you’ll have your own phone and can your friends/family will be able to get ahold of you.
It only needs to be unlocked if you want to use a local SIM. You should still be able to use any GSM phone with your current SIM, you’ll just have to pay for roaming.
uh, in canada our gsm phones are locked. gsm phones by themselves are not automagically unlocked as kraaze assumes. it is in each carrier’s interest to lock them. in canada, rogers (who also own fido) lock their phones.
hey tom, here in edmonton, omegacell.com sells unlocked phones. www.howardforums.com is also the big canadian cell phone forum–i bought my unlocked w810 from someone there in their gsm classifieds section.
oh wait, you’re currently in europe…there’s quite a few europe-wide sim cards you can buy (but you do need an unlocked gsm phone) …
shit, i’d ask in the appropriate forum on hofo, as howardforums is affectionately abbreviated.
GSM phones can be locked too - depends on the carrier.
Roaming depends on technology (If you travel a lot you need triband to make sure you can get on the network abroad - used to be - here - that a lot of phones were dualband, which meant no roaming in the US. Now most are triband) and on whatever agreements carriers have in place - all our carriers have near worldwide roaming agreements often with several companies in target countries. I have no idea if Canada is the same.
If ease of use is a priority, then sticking to a roaming phone makes sense, since nobody has to remember a new number, but Kraaze is right, the charges will run up - data charges are ridiculously expensive, so watch that iPhone.
Nah, not in Europe right now. Flying out there tomorrow morning but ideally would like to be ready to talk as soon as I land in Lyon. So the main issue is that I need to get a phone today. Rogers, as noted, does have roaming deals… for France that’s $2/min. And then $4 in Poland (where I tend to travel most). Bleh!
Ahh okay, unlocked like switching service providers. I thought someone was talking about locking a phone down so it wouldn’t work at all on different GSM networks.
If you are in Europe, see if you can buy an unlocked GSM phone there. These are more expensive here in Canada because Rogers lock all of their phones, and so unlocked phones are “imported”.
Buy a 4-band phone, if possible. Canada seems to be using a new band 850MHz. Older phones use 900MHz, 1.8GHz and 1.9GHz.
Then, you will probably swap GSM SIM chip in every country you visit, because the local prepaid SIM chip will usually receive incoming calls for free, including international calls. (This is not true in Canada. Canada cell phone plans suck the worst in the whole wide world. This is fact.)
