Need phone for vacation in Belgium

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by ZaphodB

Actually every square centimetre of Switzerland is covered by one or another of the three major carriers. There are dead spots for each carrier (mostly in remoter parts of the Alps) but there is no outdoor place in Switzerland that is without GSM coverage -- the government subsidises the buildout in areas that wouldn't be cost-effective to cover, with funds from search & rescue budgets -- when you check in for hikes you're told to turn on your phone's GPS signaller.

GSM doesn't use GPS within the system for location or timing (as CDMA does). For location in GSM systems they use triangulation between basestations, which can narrow you down to a small area, but it's not as precise as GPS.

If you were told to "switch on your GPS signaller" on your GSM phone, then that was some special add-on feature you had? Because normally GSM phones don't have anything like that.

Also, I've worked with 2 of the 3 Swiss operators, but never heard of the government subsidising a site (I'm not saying it isn't true, just that I never heard of it). Do you have a link to some info about that?

[scotsboyuk]

A friend of mine who is Swiss tells me that some mountains aren't covered, but any that can be reached by some form of public transport are.

[stufried]

Originally Posted by ZaphodB

I have 3 in Hong Kong and they are a mix but mostly 1800 MHz.

Many of the DCS providers (1800mhz) have fallback agreements on the 900 band. Hong Kong is unusual in terms of cellular reception because of its population density.

[stufried]

Originally Posted by esto

GSM doesn't use GPS within the system for location or timing (as CDMA does). For location in GSM systems they use triangulation between basestations, which can narrow you down to a small area, but it's not as precise as GPS.

If you were told to "switch on your GPS signaller" on your GSM phone, then that was some special add-on feature you had? Because normally GSM phones don't have anything like that.

Also, I've worked with 2 of the 3 Swiss operators, but never heard of the government subsidising a site (I'm not saying it isn't true, just that I never heard of it). Do you have a link to some info about that?

Some of the Harrier phones have built in GSM chips which are not advertised. On XDAdevelopers, there are a couple of people trying to hack it on, but with the exception of the HTC Athenas, it doesn't look like they are having all that much luck.

[Bugwart]

Originally Posted by Telekom

If you had gone to PrePaidGSM: Belgium you'd see that all the operators in Belgium do both 900 and 1800. So, either a tri-band that will do 850/1800/1900 or 900/1800/1900 will do just fine. There are some countries that do not have 1800 carriers and in that case a 900 capable phone is an absolute necessity. Belgium however is not one of those countries. Too many people put an emphasis on quad band phones when the truth of the matter is that most tribands whether 900/1800/1900 or 850/1800/1900 or a dual band phone that will do 900 and 1800 will work just fine.

Nope, sorry, but you are wrong.
The 900 MHz GSM network was the first GSM network. 1,800 came along because the operators needed bandwidth in the cities. I bought a Nokia 6100 in 1998 for use in Taiwan. This phone is 900 MHz only. There was plenty of 900 MHz coverage, but in many places (like Hsinchu Science Park) it was so impacted, that is was hard to get a free channel on the 900 MHz band. Two years later, I had to buy another phone. bought a Moto LF2000i tri-band which had both 900 and 1800. The 1,800 MHz buildout was in those places where the service providers needed bandwidth so with the LF2000i, I could get a signal again.

As I said, having a phone with only 900 or 1,800 bands might work, but the service it gives will not be satisfactory.

[NoLimit_05]

Originally Posted by NJ_Pubcrawler

The phone my friend may give me is probably no more than a year and a half old, so hopefully it will be suitable for where I want to take it. I will have to find out what make and model it is and do some checking to see which frequency ranges it works on.

Thanks for the info!

Another think you might want to consider is making sure the phone is unlocked even if it is capable of tri-band service or quad-band or it's not going to work anywhere except with Cingular period.

[scotsboyuk]

Just as an aside, a 1800 MHz only handset will work fine in the UK.

[Telekom]

Originally Posted by scotsboyuk

Just as an aside, a 1800 MHz only handset will work fine in the UK.

As well as most any place else in Europe. I think pretty much 1800 will work fine most anywhere in Europe. Some Asian countries have 900 only.

[groznybay]

Actually, I used onesimcard - OneSIMcard - International SIM Card, Prepaid SIM cards, International Mobile phones, rent a cell phone for international travel, International Cell Phones, Global Phone SIM Card, corporate mobile phones in Belgium, France, Germany, Australia, Russia and Japan. It works. Good easy recharging options. Also, GPRS data service, option of US or Canada numbers. I like it more than local SIMs. There is not time to deal with this when traveling.