Hi!
This summer I'll spend my holidays on the West Coast USA, California,Nevada,Arizona. Actually I've a Tri-band mobile and I'd like to know first if it's ok for the coverage in USA, and above all where I can buy a prepaid card to use there.. I've tried to read some exixtant discussion, but unfortunately I'm a disaster in electronic technology so I wasn't able to match your answers to solve my issue... :wacko: :help:
Many many thanks for your suggestions! :D
Ciao
Silvia

Ciao Silvia :)

I think this is a interesting offer: http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa/cingular.html

...but wait for our american friends :beer:

Cingy has lots of 850 coverage. I can't speak for the W coast. Here on the E coast, 1900 should give you decent coverage in major cities & highways.

Bottom line -- my opinion:

BETTER would be a QUAD band, but you should have decent coverage with 1900 in major metropolitan areas.

Have a pleasant stay!

Stan

Ebay. Do you have a friend in US? Work out something with him or her. I think most Ebay sellers of US SIMs will NOT ship overseas. I have seen US SIMs on EBAY.DE.

You can also wait until you arrive and you can purchase at any corporate T-MO or Cingular corporate store. The price will be higher than Ebay.

Perhaps someone here has a spare SIM for sale.

Supposedly, Cingy has better coverage, but if you are following the news, Cingy is being sued in WA STATE (W coast) for poor coverage and deceptive advertising in their recent merger with ATT.

PERSONALLY, I am partial to T-MO, but again, I am not qualified to speak for W coast USA.

Stan

I would suggest tmobile. Primarily because they a 1900 ONLY carrier(with 850 roaming in a few places) and you already have a phone with the 1900 band. Tmobile is more like 99% 1900 band. I would not go with Cingular if your phone does not have the 850 band. Even though I think Cingular is mostly 1900 on the west coast.

My siblings use their triband phones with my tmobile payg sims without any problems when ever they visit from the UK. In any metropolitan area, tmobile will be fine. And, ebay is the cheapest place to get the sim. You can also get topups from a lot of stores or even topup via your credit card. You can get an activated tmobile sim with about 150 minutes or so for about $10. You just have to find a seller that will ship overseas. OTOH, if you have friends here, they can get it and mail it to you.


Sims on ebay.

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?c...card&category0=

I do agree with Bossman. HOWEVER, it would be good to hear some confirmation about WEST COAST USA coverage of T-MO prepaid. Chicago is NOT West Coast. Neither is Richmond, VA.

OTOH, it is clear that the original T-MO strategy in US was to start in the big metropolitan areas and major interstates and then expand coverage.

The OP should also check the T-MO USA PREPAID (NOTA BENA) PREPAID coverage site for cities or areas to be visited. The states mentioned are large and there is not 100% coverage, especially rural and desert. I don't have that link right now.

www.t-mobile.com should be close enough. There is a separate prepaid coverage map which is thinner than the postpaid.

I'm going to chime in with an MVNO -- Speakout Wireless from 7-11. They have access to the full Cingular footprint, $0.20 a minute, one year activations, and according HoFo they probably work in Canada at no surcharge. If you call Europe alot, I'd add a prepaid calling card on top fo the lot. I like onesuite.com's offering, but there are a million other offers.

Then again the "Vladtel" offer sounds pretty good as well.

Stu

The OP has a triband phone, so the "full" Cingular footprint is of little use to him UNLESS he buys another phone with 850 band.

TRUE, 1900 Cingular coverage may be better than T-MO.

Again, I think the OP would do best to look at the coverage maps before choosing which carrier.

It is true that T-Mobile holds no 850mhz GSM licenses, but even TMobile has started signing roaming agreements ont hat band.

At present, though, TMO expressly states that there is no 850 MHz roaming for its prepaid customers. I'd think you'd be better off with T-Mobile on a 1900-MHz-only phone for that reason.

One thing to keep in mind is that even though the major netowrks now have "nationwide" footprints, because of the way that wireless licenses are awarded in the US, the carriers still rely on domestic roaming to augment their coverage. You will find areas where both T-Mobile and Cingular roam on carriers like Western Wireless, NPI, Elkhorn, High Plains, etc. to fill out their coverage. This is mostly in very rural areas. But unless the small carrier is tightly integrated (shares the switch) with the larger carrier, prepaids will probably not roam. The US carriers have not worked very hard on prepaid roaming, even domestic roaming.

:thumbup: Hi... I was out off of my office, so I can see your replies only now...
Thanks to everybody! :thumbup:
Only ..maybe a stupid question.. do you think I can't use my actual mobile in West Coast? I have a Nokia 6680 or a Samsung SGH-D500..
Many thx in advance!!! :D
CIAOOOOOOOOOO

As has been posted above, as long as your phone has the 1900 band, which both of your phones do have, you will be fine. Tmobile payg uses the 1900 band exclusively. So, IMHO that will be the better choice. Of course, your phones have to be unlocked. Now, if you were asking about roaming, you have to check with your carrier if they have roaming agreements with any of the carriers here.

In almost all the big cities of the USA, you will be fine with t mobile and 1900 coverage only....I've driven from the Bay Area through the LA area down to the Mexican border and had no trouble with my tri band (900/1800/1900) phone and have not needed 850...I've driven from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and no problem...my t mobile phone even works (although you're not supposed to use it near the gambling places) in many of the casinos of Las Vegas. It should not be a big problem.

I'd like to add that T-Mobile has recently instituted domestic prepaid roaming on at least some markets of Cingular and SunCom. Same price as T-Mobile's native coverage. This has greatly improved their prepaid map. This is great for me because I have an ancient regional T-Mobile postpaid plan, which I dare not change because I'll lose the grandfathered international roaming feature. When out of my region, I forward my postpaid to my prepaid.