cell phones in europe

decides2dream

hopefully one of you lovely europeans can help.
as i am travelling over for shows.....london thru nijmegen, and also will spend a good amount of time on my own, i'd like to have a cell phone.

now if i bring my phone over from home, it would cost a small fortune to use overseas. so i am wondering my options. a friend told me of a service where you rent a phone here at home, but the calls are still rather costly. any other suggestions? can i bring over my current phone, get a european SIM card say in london, and then what? buy a plan for the time i'm over there? is this difficult to do? any idea as to costs? costs per calls? i will be in europe for 2 weeks, in london, dusseldorf, amsterdam, the hague and nijmegen.

i appreciate any info/assistance any may offer.





edit *nijmegen

chime

This probably won't be too much help but if your were to say buy a SIM in London any calls you made/received while anywhere but the UK would still be intenational calls and therefore expensive. I don't think you can get a Europe wide price plan for a mobile

miskin

thats kinda hard...

thing is if you bought a sim card say in london - when you get to other countries in euorpe it will cost LOADS to call places...

i would suggest just buying a calling card for each country you go to..
you can get quite cheap ones, that will give you a lot of time to call home and/or locally.

buying a new sim card in every country would work out to be very pricey..

mole1985

You can find a cheap pay as you go phone for like £20 these days. Say if you bought it in London and you then used it in Germany calls will still cost a little more. You are already on the London blog and check the Dusseldorf hostel thread and you will find plenty of people to hang out with.

A text with vodaphone in Germany will cost 49p. Recieving a call cost 75p a min and making a call cost 75p a min going up to £1.50 a min. Hope this helps.

duggro

if you buy a sim in london and use it in the uk you will not be charged international rates

i work for the uk's biggest network o2, so i can only speak for them and not the others, but basically if you buy an o2 sim card (between £5 and £10) you will get calls in the UK for between 5p/min and 40p/min depending who you call, and with o2 you can get 300 free text messages just buy topping up £10 (ie putting £10 of calling credit on the sim) and that should cover the few days you'd be in the UK.

You could buy a new sim in each country, or you could sign up for My Europe with your o2 sim card which will make it 35p/min flat rate to make/receive all calls within europe and text messages for 10p. this is free to sign up for and it is much better than the standard rates which are about £1/min. all you would need to do is top up a decent amount before you go to last you in europe, and if you run out of credit you can top up with a credit card online.

as long as your phone is unlocked (ie can take any sim card) you will be fine.

im obviously only talking about one netword, you can shop around if you want too

give us a shout if you want any more info

redrock

There's these global roaming sim cards... makes calls much cheaper...

Here is a link to one of the companies doing it so you have an idea of what it is but google global roaming sim card and see what you find for the US. (EDIT - or even Canada!!!)

http://www.gosim.com/index.php?page=3725_global_sim&ref=15

viviflu

decides2dream wrote:

hopefully one of you lovely europeans can help.
as i am travelling over for shows.....london thru dusseldorf, and also will spend a good amount of time on my own, i'd like to have a cell phone.

Hi, I leave in switzerland and the easiest prepaid thing you can get is from orange, (http://www.orangeclick.ch) it is ALL done on the internet so basically all you need is a credit card and a adress somewhere I guess.
otherwise you can check on your arrival at the city to land first normally you can send text messages pretty cheap all over the place

hope it was helpful

Hinny

This is what I'll be getting.

http://www.lonelyplanet.ekit.com/ekit/MobilePurchase/Service_ckglobal?mobile_refcode=LPOFF03S

audiodave

I'm learning a lot from this thread! I just run up a massive phone bill whilst abraod

duggro

there are loads of different ways of gettin cheaper calls abraod. just have to ask about them basically

Blanche

I don't think your American phone would work here at all. Something about networks.

The cell phone itself isn't the biggest expense. It's the SIM card and calls.
You might pay for incoming calls from abroad, about 40-70 cents euro, as well as your outgoing calls, about 1 euro, per minute. And these rates are just for western Europe. I don't know how much a call to/from the US would be, but it'll gobble up your credit in no time.

Check Orange, Vodaphone, O2, T Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and 3.

And if you get yourself an phone in London, don't forget to get an electric adapter (110 volts vs. 220 volts).

hawkeye8388

I work for Cingular Wireless and made the trip to Europe for a couple shows last year. I imagine your phone is GSM enabled, which means it will work pretty much anywhere in the world (where there is cell service). My recommendation is to just use your cell phone for emergency purposes and buy a calling card that you can use in a phone both. The calling card will be MUCH MORE cheaper.

Be sure to call your cell phone provider so they can add international roaming, otherwise you're screwed.

Finally, PJ is a great excuse to travel but be sure you take time to enjoy Europe. The shows I hit were great, but the most memorable part of the trip was traveling across England, Spain, and France.

Enjoy the trip!

duggro

the phone should work here. mobiles need to be tri-band to work in the states so uk phones used to have problems over there, but none of the major phopne manufacturers make them just for the US. if the handset works on the 3rd us frequency, then it will work in the dual-band regions in europe.

i rarely ever talk about work outside of work, but as it stands my europe with o2 is probably the best option if its infrequent calls you plan on making. keeping one number for the whole time

decides2dream

audiodave wrote:

I'm learning a lot from this thread!

me too!

many options to consider.

first of all, i will not be a'lone' per se for my trip, but between dusseldorf and nijmegen, i have a week on my own. i will be staying with friends and such, but as i assume they will have to go to work, i'll be on my own then, each day, perhaps evening, don't know. also need to be able to coordinate meeting up with friends before/after shows...coordinate travel together, etc.

last year when i went over for the 5 italian shows, i was with my friend barbara 24/7....so people could reach her, and thus me. this trip i will have a lot of time all on my own, and i'd feel more comfortable having a phone 'just in case'.....and so i can be reached and reach others.

my phone WILL work in europe, i can even get a plan, but sure, it's like a $1 a minute. seems the link redrock posted thus far might be the best deal....altho maybe i'll just take my chances w/o my own phone costs, keep it simple. i have to look into it more and weigh my options.


btw - i have been to europe numerous times before, and yes, i absolutely plan on enjoying my stay there. i will be there a solid 2 weeks, and only hitting 3 shows...and as i mentioned a solid week between 2, will be in amsterdam/the hague then...exploring and having a blast!

thanks for all the info folks, i shall check into it all.....and if anyone has any additional info to add, please do! that's why i am asking now, far in advance, to figure my best option.


duggro...i absolutely want to stick with 1 number as i want people to be able to reach ME, and not jusr me calling...so yea, that is important. so i either will go with the global SIM that redrock posted, or i may look into what you suggest. do you know if i can arrange it from here in the states? third option, just get an international plan with my US carrier, i'll have to see.

duggro

decides2dream wrote:

duggro...i absolutely want to stick with 1 number as i want people to be able to reach ME, and not jusr me calling...so yea, that is important. so i either will go with the global SIM that redrock posted, or i may look into what you suggest. do you know if i can arrange it from here in the states? third option, just get an international plan with my US carrier, i'll have to see.

are you in the UK first? if you are you can just buy an o2 sim in loads of different shops then set it up really easily

Heineken Helen

duggro wrote:

are you in the UK first? if you are you can just buy an o2 sim in loads of different shops then set it up really easily

I'm with O2 and I have to say they're brilliant for roaming but costly. My sister's with vodaphone and she's always had problems. e.g. she was in New York a couple of weeks ago and could only receive calls and texts. I've never had a problem, I also have internet banking so if my credit runs out I just find an internet cafe and top up.

Jennytree

I can only tell you about the network I'm on, if thats any help!

You can get a free sim card with meteor:

http://www.meteor.ie/payg_freesim.html

Their international rates are here:

http://www.meteor.ie/payg_plans_anytime_international.html

not sure about other countries, but I'm sure you can grab free sims from other networks too. (orange in the UK: http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/simoffer)

It'd be much easier to unlock the phone you have now and get a sim card, rather than buying lots of new phones.

for nokia unlocking: http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/129 or google for other models.

duggro

Heineken Helen wrote:

I'm with O2 and I have to say they're brilliant for roaming but costly. My sister's with vodaphone and she's always had problems. e.g. she was in New York a couple of weeks ago and could only receive calls and texts. I've never had a problem, I also have internet banking so if my credit runs out I just find an internet cafe and top up.

if i knew anything about o2 ireland i'd do my best to help, but o2 uk and o2irl are treated as two separate businesses. there are probably random discount plans available though

ScotInAmsterdam

Sim cards cost next to nothing and then you will get local calls pretty cheap, but be aware that your phone will need "chipped" this costs about 10-15 euros... then all you need to do is get a sim card in each country that you are spending a significant amount of time in. The only problem i see is that you are going to have to top them up in a foreign language. Vodaphone NL is good cos you don;t have to talk to anyone. you just type in a number on oyur phone and then hit send - easy as that. I have a sim for UK and one for the NL and I just move them back and forward depending on which country I'm in. If it's just for SMS, then just get something you can top up easy... They say that you can buy NL vodafone top up credit in any vodafone shop in europe... but I've done it a couple of times and it's not worked. I prefer to just use the internet to top up. ... but you need a dutch bank account for that(Or at least need to know someone with a dutch bank account). O2 might have a similar system, but I just use my debit card to put credit on that.

Heineken Helen

ScotInAmsterdam wrote:

Sim cards cost next to nothing and then you will get local calls pretty cheap, but be aware that your phone will need "chipped" this costs about 10-15 euros... then all you need to do is get a sim card in each country that you are spending a significant amount of time in. The only problem i see is that you are going to have to top them up in a foreign language. Vodaphone NL is good cos you don;t have to talk to anyone. you just type in a number on oyur phone and then hit send - easy as that. I have a sim for UK and one for the NL and I just move them back and forward depending on which country I'm in. If it's just for SMS, then just get something you can top up easy... They say that you can buy NL vodafone top up credit in any vodafone shop in europe... but I've done it a couple of times and it's not worked. I prefer to just use the internet to top up. ... but you need a dutch bank account for that(Or at least need to know someone with a dutch bank account). O2 might have a similar system, but I just use my debit card to put credit on that.

Yip, some good points. One of the times I was in London I bought some O2 credit thinking I could just top up as normal... it didn't work so I had to do it through internet banking.

decides2dream

ScotInAmsterdam wrote:

Sim cards cost next to nothing and then you will get local calls pretty cheap, but be aware that your phone will need "chipped" this costs about 10-15 euros... then all you need to do is get a sim card in each country that you are spending a significant amount of time in. The only problem i see is that you are going to have to top them up in a foreign language. Vodaphone NL is good cos you don;t have to talk to anyone. you just type in a number on oyur phone and then hit send - easy as that. I have a sim for UK and one for the NL and I just move them back and forward depending on which country I'm in. If it's just for SMS, then just get something you can top up easy... They say that you can buy NL vodafone top up credit in any vodafone shop in europe... but I've done it a couple of times and it's not worked. I prefer to just use the internet to top up. ... but you need a dutch bank account for that(Or at least need to know someone with a dutch bank account). O2 might have a similar system, but I just use my debit card to put credit on that.

ahhhhh, decisions, decisions. i will be spending a 'significant' amount of time in the UK and NL. however, if it cost 10 euros...and do that 2x....that's $40 right off the start, and for $57 i can simply get the global SIM with great rates. i don't text ...hahaha....here in the states cell phone usage is dirt cheap so i just make/recieve actual calls....so texting is a lost art on me. i tried it once or twice, pain in the arse, i'd rather speak. i still am undecided. i am going to check with my current carrier. my husband called once looking into it, but i think i need to myself to get a better idea. i am concerned about having 'issues' and then being stuck, and already laid out cash, etc.......so i will see.

i think my husband said it would cost $6 US to get an international plan for the month, and that calls would cost 99 cents US each. bit more than what some have posted, but even duggro's rates that sounded damn cheap, i think? 45p would actually be about 70 cents US, plus the cost for the card....and if i don't use all that i pay for, it would just sit on the card and be wasted....so yea, it might be worth my while in the long run to try and arrange something with my home carrier. eh, one of a million things to look into/arrange.......:p

thanks for all the info though folks! great stuff, but yea....so many choices, tough call.......


obviously i only have US credit cards/accounts...is this a problem for topping off over the phone and/or online? b/c if it is...makes my decision way easier...obviously can't do that then, so different plan would be needed.

Duff_Man

if anyones interested O2 are giving away free simcards:

http://freesim.o2.co.uk/messages.php

i have 4 of these, and im probably not going to use them either now (ive switched to vodafone), so i could probably find them and send them out if anyone wants one

duggro

yeah i meant to say that in my rant about o2!

free sims are always good