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sort of OT: GSM abroad

I'm wondering about taking my cell phone with me and using it out of the country. I spent a month in Europe recently and a mobile handset would have come in handy at times. I have a GSM phone (Nokia flip phone; carrier, Consumer Cellular). The customer service person I talked to said it's unlocked, but she didn't have any information about getting a sim card I can use in Europe or whether I can even do that. A European friend of mine told me that he took his phone with him to the U.S. once, but his calls were routed through Europe. I don't want to be somewhere overseas making a local call and have my calls routed through the U.S. It looks like taking a GSM phone abroad means getting a new sim card. So can I buy a sim card in Europe (or elsewhere abroad) that would work in my phone?

Mike Robinson

Reply to
Michael Robinson
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Just to expand on this (I probably have the same phone), the Nokia 6085 is a four freq GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz phone so it's probably technically capable of EU interoperability.

Nice to know it's unlocked. I haven't messed with it too much, just enough to really applaud the "openness" of the Nokia bluetooth link.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

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I can't see why not. And the UK includes the world capital for unlocking mobile phones and DVD players (the one on the ISS space station was "fixed" in London). You can buy a cheap pay as you go SIM card in most supermarkets and put credit on it as you checkout.

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It ought to. You might run into language difficulties explaining what you want to do on the continent. Beware of long international calls or moving bulk data with high tariffs from a mobile. Save the original SIM card for later.

Minor annoyance is that you will lose access to the phonebook entries in the old SIM card unless you can copy them all into the phones own memory first. It should be pretty simple to do. If you are nervous about damaging your main phone just buy a sacrificial dirt cheap one at the supermarket.

Regards, Martin Brown

Reply to
Martin Brown

Yeah, you can buy a sim card and plug it into your phone, and it should work (assuming it's actually SP unlocked and tri-band or whatever). This should give you a local number, so anyone calling you will call the number in, say, Italy, and your phone will ring. IIRC, a prepaid SIM card there ran around EUR 40 or so, with some for the phone number and card, and some for value you could draw down on.

Around here, small cell phone shops will unlock your phone for about $20 cash. They use a data cable and a bit of software. You can do it yourself but you run some risk of "bricking" the phone.

The combination of your GSM cellphone, a local prepaid SIM card, and Skype for outgoing calls (and incoming computer-to-computer calls) is cheap and powerful.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

phone providers most places will give you a sim (and a local phone number) with pre-paid calling for a nominal fee.

Bye. Jasen

Reply to
Jasen Betts

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