Hello group!

I have a Nokia 8390 that was bought as part of an AT&T contract. I just paid $5 to have it unlocked and that seemed to work well. BUT... when I went to a local place and put in the SIM card it would not find the network. The network is GSM 900/1800 and the Nokia says the phone is "GSM/GPRS 1900" (is that a typo)

Is there anything you guys could think of that I need to do to my phone to insure it will work on their pre-paid network????

Thank you!!!!!!!!

That's not a typo, the Nokia 8390 is GSM 1900 only, you cannot use it with 900/1800 band, of course. It's a phone for America, not for the rest of the World...

Thank you for the reply. This really helps me out. Damn, I have carried this phone around for 3 years in Germany (where it didn't work) and brought it with me to Qatar and it is not going to work!

Thank you again. Ths takes the mystery out of it for me and lets me get on with shopping for a new phone for my 6 month assignment.

Provided I buy a phone here, what should I look for so as to bring it back to the US and use there. I was looking at a Motorola razr. Should I buy one strait away or wait until I go back the the US? Is there a particular model I should look for to be able to use in the middle east and the US?

Thanks for you help. I have little experience in mobile interoperability and technology.

You want to buy a triband or quad band phone if you want to to work in the US. The Razr is quadband. The US bands are 850/1900. Cingular uses both bands in a lot of places. Tmobile is mostly 1900 and 850 roaming in a few places. The rest of the world that uses GSM outside North America uses 900/1800. The triband phones you will see over there are 900/1800/1900. So, if you buy a triband, it will work very well with tmobile here, and okay with cingular(depending on location). A quadband will work very well here and in the other countries that use GSM...It has all the GSM bands! You can buy it there or wait till you get here. Just make sure it's unlocked. There are lots of quad band phones out there (Check ebay). Just note that the triband phones you will see in the US will mostly be 850/1800/1900. Which will give you excellent coverage here, but okay coverage outside the US, because it does not have the 900 band.

thank you for the info. I am searching around for phones now. Do you have an impression of the Motorola SLVR L6? I think this is what I am going to go with as it is much cheaper than the RAZR so I won't feel back with it gets a little scratched up. A currently converter was a feature I really want, which both phones have..

I heard the L6 is a pretty good triband phone. There is also the L7 which is quad band. On eBay, the L6 averages about a $80 less than the L7. What I usually do is use ebay to see how much they are going for then compare that to how much you can get it out there or whereever else.

Some L6 are also quadband. The new ones I believe. Like this one on ebay which I think is a very good price.

http://cgi.ebay.com/BRAND-NEW-MOTOROLA-L6-...1QQcmdZViewItem

Here is a comparison from phone scoop.

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/compare.p...B%5D=&id%5B%5D=

final question: I decided to take the plunge and go with the Motorola Razor. Is $200 a good price or does anyone know of a better price?

That's about how much they(unlocked) are going for on ebay. IMHO, ebay usually have the best or at least very competitive deals. If you can get it for a price close to eBay's, I think it's a good deal.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Motorola-Razr-V3-B...1QQcmdZViewItem

If he is Qatar, e-bay may not be as good a deal. I have not been in Qatar, but I live in Dubai. Dubai is a great place to buy unlocked phones. I think Qatar would be similar. I'll let you know in a little bit. I'm doing a status change on my visa and am running to Qatar to reenter the country on the new visa.

Thanks Stu. I did go forward with the purchase of a Motorola V3 the other day and it is working great. I don't get to go into town much so I didn't have a lot of time to shop around there. eBay was fine enough because I wasn't in a hurry, but I would be interesting to see what deal the street here offers to compare. I paid $204US delivered.

My only comment is the crap service I received at the QTel shop purchasing a SIM card and a temp contract. They guy didn't explain anything about the contract other than to say for two months service it would be 200 Ryials all the while the local Arabs were pushing ahead of queue. Rude bastards!

Welcome to the World of In'Challah,

Life in Arabian Gulf is a trip. Customer service is not a concept that they have embraced/ English works half way in this country and I suspect that Arabic works about the same. You need Hindi or Urdu to really communicate. Incidentally, it is not the natives that cannot speak English. Both the UAE and Qatar are former British protectorates. English was the official language until the 1970s in both countries. Emiratees speak English just fine. It is the workers and persons in the service industries that have a problem.

With respect to lines and being at the front, I make eye contact with the person on the desk and say somthing like "Next." I then make hardened eye contact with the natives. It usually works.

Driving is interesting. People make right turns from the third lane left. It is the world's biggest game of chicken. If you hestitate because you don't trust one driver, three drivers will jump in front of you. People drive on the freeway at over 160kph while talking on their non-handsfree mobiles. In a small country you wonder where people are in such a hurry to go to. I have plenty of experience driving abroad and am doing ok, but pity the poor drivers back in the States when I get behind the wheel there after driving for six months here.

I'm not sure that "rude" is so much the right word as "selfish." Emirates are nice people on a one on one, but everyone of them has been raised in a caste system where they are the big fish. For example, if you have a licence plate with three numbers (e.g. 999) you are an important person and are given a pass by the police. If you have a two digit plate, you are royalty. Police know they will lose their job and probably be deported if they dare give these people tickets no matter what they do. 49 US states have driver's license reciprocity with the UAE. One does not (I don't know which). The reason for this exception is that a member of the Zayed family got a ticket in that state and the State refused to tear it up.

Unfortunately, the natives have not developed a work ethic. They have been spoiled by the oil revenues and cheap labor. In at 10, take a two hour lunch, and gone at three. That is the typical work day for the locals.

If you hire one, it is impossible to fire them which is why ex patriots are generally hired over locals. When Emirates are challenged for not having a work ethic, they respond by telling you how their grandparents were fisherman or pearl divers and worked very hard! Sheikh Kallifah is aware of this and trying to change things, but it is hard to break old habits.

Emiratees regularly study a year abroad (either in the States or the UK). It would really help their culture if they were given work study programs where they were forced to work as lowly student assistants in foreign countries. For the sake of their own self-preservation, they need to break this cycle.

With all the modernization that is going on in this country, the country really needs to adopt "the rule of law."

Stu

PS: Your temporary ruler is an interesting chap. He is actually one of the more progressive in the region. His proposal to give long term immigrants citizenship is revolutionary in the gulf, he has a deep commitment to freedom of the press, and his daughter just graduated summa cum laude from Cornell. In a country where women traditionally were given little education, this is a first.