there are mountains there, I think it's not a big issue. By the way I can use my Wind simcard in Menton with Italian signal...
It's more a problem in Trieste, with Slovenian and even Croatian operators. And I think between Belgium and the Netherlands it's even worse (or better for ygeffens) since there are no mountains at all, just flat land, so the signal can go further...

Hi all,

Thanks for the hints.
Only one operator (NL KPN) shows up in my networkselection.
Outside my house it's possible to get one bar (out of five, on my iPhone); inside the house I can forget it.

So far for 30 km or plus for 900mhz :-)

I think I'll stick to my NL-voip number and forward it.

Yves

Isn't the maximum distance a GSM signal can travel about 35.4 km? I bet that is only hypothetically though...

Or get a Yagi and point it at NL. Look at Wilson Electronics website for some ideas, but you may then want to track a supplier on your side of the Atlantic.

But the last tower won't be exactly at the border and they won't direct the signal in the direction of Belgium. They want to have coverage in the Netherlands, not Belgium. So if the signal stops 1 meter across the border they are okay.

I think the maximum was 35 km normally and 70 when they use 2 time slots.

Wouldn't using the Vodafone option with buurlanden be cheaper? It depends on how many calls you get. But forwarding to a cellphone isn't usually that cheap.

Well... actually no. When planning cells, all operators want to have as muchs coverage as possible (and allowed) in neighboring countries, at least close to border crossing points.

The operators want to pick up the phones of incoming travellers in their own nets. According to GSM 2 standard, the roaming customers are only handed over to others nets when there is no signal at all. So once picked up... the operator gets all the roaming fees.

Hah, just like on the German-Polish border. There are extraterritorial towers that allow you to pick up Voda and TMO (or, indeed, for them to pick you up as a roamer) 20 km before the border on the Berlin-Warsaw railway and road. (I think this was done in part so that customs inspectors from Germany could stay on-network while in PL.) But it's a Pyrrhic victory, at least if you are on the train - while the signal from all three Polish networks is good and strong all the way from Warsaw to the border, once you get into Germany, there is no coverage along the railway line, and it resumes consistently only when you are well within Berlin city limits, 90 km later.