Which cell phone carrier for overseas

[CarlosDJackal]

My current cell phone has finally died (won't recharge) and I am trying to determine which carriers offer service overseas. My Reserve unit is scheduled to mob early next year and I would like to sing up for a service which I can also use overseas - even if it's only text message capabilities.

Not sure where I'd be deploying to but assume the normal down range locations. How many here who have visited the sandbox were able to use their cell phones?

Thanks in advanced!!

[Army Chief]

Quite honestly, I'm not sure there is a way to answer your question until you have some idea where you're going, and when that happens, you will invariably find that your best bet is usually to see what is being offered by local providers in the destination country.

It's not just about coverage or fees; some systems are simply incompatible with others, and the farther "out there" you go from tech-savvy parts of the world to places like Iraq or Afghanistan, the greater difficulties you can expect to encounter. When I was in Iraq, there was no cell service, but carriers were coming on line by the end of my tour.

I use T-Mobile D1 (Germany), but am not expecting service when I get back to IZ next week. I realize it is sort of a non-answer, but the best advice is probably to wait until you get a bit closer, and can ask more specific questions. A lot can change in a year's time, too, in terms of services available.

Chief

[Gutshot John]

I travel to Europe quite a bit, and so far as I know, T-Mobile is the only carrier that works both here in the US and overseas. This may require a different sim-card or something.

Depending on where you're going YMMV.

[Ron S.]

Don't know about the middle east, but my brother's verizon phone worked in south america.

[Voodoochild]

I know Sprint has world edition phones as well as Verizon not sure about the others.

[Sidewinder6]

T Mobile will get you started. Most of the US carriers are re-sellers of Deutch Telecom (T-Mobile) Once you get your account, you have to let them know you intend to travel abroad and they publish your account information to what is called the Visitor Location Register and you can roam after a couple days. The initial time to set this up is a couple days so plan for this.

On a different note, depending your the profile you want to maintain overseas, you may then go to a local market and pick up a pre-paid SIM card and keep a local number. You stand out less to the network. Particularly if you call mobile to mobile in the same general area and both callers are prepaid. (sort of anomymous)

I am not sure if this is still happening BUT you should be aware the 'other side' was getting access to dialling records and singled out the people being called to talk to them about your impending doom. Really goes over well with the wife and kids. I have to say I havent heard about this in probably a year so this may be an old story.

Sprint/Verizon are CDMA networks so these phones they are selling are GSM/Dual mode type handsets. If you go straight to T Mobile I think you sould have fewer problems. At least this is my experience. YMMV

Safe travels.

[Iraqgunz]

Here in the IZ and most of Baghdad the local ZainIQ- used to be Iraqna is decent. I believe that a few guys I know have AT&T world or something like that and I well check back and let you know. Some guys are still buying and using Satphones. Take care.

[9MX]

carlos,

safest best is to get a GSM subscription. another option is to get a pre-paid sim of any GSM operator in your country of destination. HTH

[Jgyolai]

If you're going to Al Udeid, then you can get Qtel ( i think that's what it's called ) and use international phone cards. Qtel sells cheap phones that work decently.

[Business_Casual]

I've been everywhere (almost) with my T-mobile phone. I used to be able to expense the whole bill so I didn't care that roaming in India, Jordan or Egypt was $3.35 a minute. Texts were $1.99 or something depending on where I was. All that is on top of what I paid for the plan and US minutes. Now my phone is a Blackberry and the phone and data get charged to a central account, I have to pay a little more attention. You don't want to know what a week of International roaming will do to your phone bill.

If I were you and couldn't expense my bills, I would be all over those pre-paid cards and pre-paid phones. I wouldn't even take a phone I owned out of the country I had to pay for it.

M_P

ETA - what you need to roam internationally is a quad-band phone. The GSM freqs we use here don't match the freqs used in Europe and ROW. India is mostly CDMA (what Verizon is) but there's an issue with getting roaming agreements for service. In my opinion, Nokia makes the best phone, followed by Motorola. The rest are junk.

[Sidewinder6]

I've been everywhere (almost) with my T-mobile phone. I used to be able to expense the whole bill so I didn't care that roaming in India, Jordan or Egypt was $3.35 a minute. Texts were $1.99 or something depending on where I was. All that is on top of what I paid for the plan and US minutes. Now my phone is a Blackberry and the phone and data get charged to a central account, I have to pay a little more attention. You don't want to know what a week of International roaming will do to your phone bill.

If I were you and couldn't expense my bills, I would be all over those pre-paid cards and pre-paid phones. I wouldn't even take a phone I owned out of the country I had to pay for it.

M_P

ETA - what you need to roam internationally is a quad-band phone. The GSM freqs we use here don't match the freqs used in Europe and ROW. India is mostly CDMA (what Verizon is) but there's an issue with getting roaming agreements for service. In my opinion, Nokia makes the best phone, followed by Motorola. The rest are junk.


Good info for the travlers.
Only thing I might add is you can bring an unblocked handset and change SIMs every call if you want to. This means, its OK to bring your expensive US account and just buy a SIM card with xx minutes on it and a local number ( which you have a 1 time charge for) If you run the minutes down, and can deal with the languages on the web, you can re-energize your SIM for a while longer. This idea gets even more interesting if you buy a card in country B and then travel to country C with your phone from country A. You get the gist.

Happy hunting :cool:

[CarlosDJackal]

Sounds like my best bet is to get a phone that can be unlocked to accept overseas SIM cards (which my current phone cannot). I will defintely look into T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T to see what they have to offer.

Thanks for the great info guys!!

[AwaySooner]

T-mobile and AT&T are the only GSM providers. If you already have service with either, just called to unlock, Tmobile would do it just ask, no need to buy a new phone.

[kbrdann]

If you are heading to Iraq just wait till you get there and buy a cheap phone in country and buy the minuits as you go. There is cell phone coverage all over there.

[WallaS]

My Cingular/ATT worked in Australia. If I remember, I did have to go in and have the service activated. Due to the call cost I only used it for emergencies.

WallaS

[RyanB]

I used a Blackberry 8830 World Edition in Ireland and Italy without issue. You need a GSM sim card that is not included with the phone. If you will be there for any length of time it might be best to rent or buy a phone locally.

[Impact]

I have AT&T and it works great in Europe.

[A-Mart]

O2 is big in the UK, so is Virgin Mobile I think. I hear Vodafone is big in Japan and T-Mobile is big in Germany.