For Americans Going To Europe Or Overseas

[Effendi]

1800 can suffice in large cities only on Wind, and anyway you'll probably have not much coverage inside buildings at low floors. With TIM and Vodafone I suspect you need 900 much more...

[snaimon]

Originally Posted by Effendi

1800 can suffice in large cities only on Wind, and anyway you'll probably have not much coverage inside buildings at low floors. With TIM and Vodafone I suspect you need 900 much more...

Since his current phone does not have 900, WIND better be a roaming partner for him. If not, he will have no coverage if what you say is true.

Am a bit astonished. Have 1800 coverage on my 2 German SIMs and that is quite good almost everywhere. Also, the National Op pages show that the biggies in IT have 1800 coverage as well as 900.

Stan

[jlbaer1]

If I am going to use my cell phone and just pay roaming while visiting my daughter in Italy, do I need to get my phone unlocked by TMob. I thought I only needed to get it unlocked if I was gonna buy an Italian sim card which Im not. Also, I think I might roll the dice and use my tri band and try to get by on the 1800 freq as I will be in urban areas such as Milan and Rome and otherwise with her so I can use her phone in a pinch.

I was looking at quad band phones thou on my Tmobile website and the Nokia 6086 and Nokia 6133 are somewhat intriguing to me. So, I might just go out and upgrade to one of those. I have all the Nokia accessories such as the car adapter and battery chargers (2) so I might as well stay withing Nokia.

I can upgrade for 49.00 and it only extends my contract 1 year and 2 months which I could care less about since I am happy with Tmob.

[snaimon]

Originally Posted by jlbaer1

If I am going to use my cell phone and just pay roaming while visiting my daughter in Italy, do I need to get my phone unlocked by TMob. I thought I only needed to get it unlocked if I was gonna buy an Italian sim card which Im not. Also, I think I might roll the dice and use my tri band and try to get by on the 1800 freq as I will be in urban areas such as Milan and Rome and otherwise with her so I can use her phone in a pinch.

Correct about unlocking. Need that only if you put in another FOREIGN SIM. Make sure you have world class enabled before you leave. T-MO will love it.

Have a great trip. Plz report back on 1800 coverage especially if it is better than expected.

Stan

[misterbill]

OK so I apologize if this is covered in some other thread or even in this one.

We're going on a Mediterranean cruise in a couple of weeks. We start in Spain (Barcelona, 2 days) then visit France (1 day, also will be in Monaco that day), Greece (2 days), Croatia (1 day) and Italy (7 days). I am buying an unlocked quad-band Samsung and my plan is only to use it for very occasional calls home to the US and to contact other cruise passengers. Is there one service we can use everywhere? I could do without service in France if that makes it easier. I guess I would want to buy the package in Barcelona unless I can get it cheaply and quickly by mail here in the US.

Cheap Internet service would be nice but is not absolutely required. I don't want to spend very much for this. I had not planned to bring a Bluetooth capable PC to connect to the phone but might if I can get Internet access by phone (although when I would want to use it at night, the ship will be out at sea and likely will not have cellular service so it might not be that feasable to use it as a modem).

Thanks..

[dripley]

Since my original post in June, I have been waiting until September to obtain the unlock code for my Vodafone 226. I have just obtained the code from the German Vodafone website but now I have no idea what to do next. No doubt there are instructions on the German site but the German/English translations I have been using do not leave me with clear instructions. Can anyone give me a blow by blow description of what I should do next. The Vodafone site I used to obtain the unlock code is as follows,

Vodafone D2 | Callya Handy entsperren - Vodafone D2 - Hilfe & Support / Infocenter / Hardware entsperren / CallYa-Handy entsperren

I hope someone can help me.

Thanks in advance.

Denis

[dripley]

The URL I just gave in my previous email is incorrect. It should be,

[url=http://www.vodafone.de/hilfe-support/infodoks-jugendschutz-sicherheit-netzabdeckung-kontakt/96918.html]

Thanks.

Denis

[dripley]

I live in Canada and 2 years ago I purchased a Pay-as-you-Go Vodafone 226 for use in Germany while we were on holiday. In October, we are going to visit Italy & Spain. My question is, can I purchase a different SIM card for this phone to use in both these countries or 2 seperate cards, one for each country?

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by dripley

I live in Canada and 2 years ago I purchased a Pay-as-you-Go Vodafone 226 for use in Germany while we were on holiday. In October, we are going to visit Italy & Spain. My question is, can I purchase a different SIM card for this phone to use in both these countries or 2 seperate cards, one for each country?

Let's start with the obvious....there is a good chance the phone is (sim) locked. Think of a computer booting up. The computer goes through a whole series of checks. So does a mobile phone. When a gsm phone starts up, the first thing it looks for is if there is a sim card. If not you immediately get a message to insert a sim card. The next thing it looks for is whether the sim card is authorized. You see since companies sell or give away phones, they want to be able to prevent you from leaving them and going to a competitor by simply inserting another sim card (one of the good qualities of gsm over some other technologies). So they put a code in telling the phone not to allow another company's sim card. This is called locking the phone. Now phones can be unlocked. For a while, the unlocking codes of Nokia had been compromised and it was relatively easy for anybody to unlock a Nokia phone by entering the unlocking code. the misereable telcoms did not like that and Nokia has tightened up its security on that. Pros can unlock most phones either with the code or by tampering with the boot up program with various cables.

So you have to determine if your phone is locked. If it is, you have to get it unlocked. It can be done in various way. You can do a google search and find people who do it over the net or find somebody at home withthe knowledge.

Once the phone is unlocked, you can put in any sim card you want. Whether you need separate sim cards for the two countries really depends on just how you are going to use your mobile. If mostly just for receiving calls, the first sim card you buy will probably be sufficient as the eu has moved to limit the amount you pay to receive calls when roaming (when you're using the card in a country other than its original country)...if OTOH you will be making a lot of calls, Italian and Spanish sim cards are reltively inexpensive but I don't know how much it costs to call Canada (or the USA) on them. Perhaps a little research is necessary. There are also cards out that allow free reception of calls throughout many parts of the world and don't give you the need to get separate sim cards. These are all parts of many discussions here.

BTW if you're unsure whether your phone is unlocked, simply insert the sim card of a company other than the one who sold you the phone. Even if the phone doesn't have the proper frequencies for the region you're in, either you will get a pretty immediate message when the phone starts to boot up that you have an unauthorized sim card or you won't get this message....if you don't get this message even if the phone doesn't register on a network, chances are the phone is unlocked.

[dripley]

Dear MATHA531,

Thanks for the prompt reply. My phone is locked and attempts to unlock it 18 months ago proved fruitless. I will have another try and hopefully I will be successful.

Denis