American Student in UK

How long are you going to be over there? I would stay away from a phone rental like Ace because you can purchase a phone for much less than you can rent it if you are over there for more than a few weeks.

If you are going to be staying strictly in the UK then why don't you get a prepaid phone over there. I will be moving to the UK in a year and a half from now so I have been doing some research.
I will be going with http://three.co.uk prepaid because they have skype embedded in a couple of their phone models. Skype means free calls to the US. If you can have your family on skype and get them to sign up for a skype to go account, (three dollars a month) then their calls can go to their phones. You can also maintain a US number on skype. When people call the number it will forward to your skype account.

Some other providers I have found are http://o2.co.uk http://vodafone.co.uk http://www.t-mobile.co.uk http://orange.co.uk Over there prepaid is widely used. Also, minutes cost more money because the caller pays for the air time and text messages sent, not the receiver.

 

I assume you are in the US now. What phone do you use currently and on what carrier? If you are already on a GSM carrier in the US and have a quad band phone, the simplest thing to do (assuming you have been a customer for at least 3 months or so) would be to call up CS and ask them to give you an unlock code for your phone. That way, you can use the same phone abroad by simply buying either a prepaid or postpaid plan and putting in the SIM into your phone.

 

If you are currently with Verizon, obviously your current phone will not work in the UK because it is a CDMA phone and you need GSM. So you have a few decisions to make.

Option 1: Switch to AT&T.

You can do this and get a quad band phone - there should be a good selection of these. You will need to be a customer for either 60 or 90 days (I can't remember which) before they will give you an unlock code for your phone so that you can use it abroad. My real question is whether you want to get locked into a 2-year postpaid plan commitment if you are going to be based in the UK. Are going to want to pay your AT&T cell phone bill every month for a service that you only use when you are going to be in the US? How often is that going to be, a few weeks in the year? To me this sounds like an expensive option.

Option 2: Get an unlocked quad band phone off the Internet.
You can get phones on eBay, or various companies on the web that sell unlocked GSM phones. You should be able to pick up an excellent phone for less than $100. I like this option myself. You don't have to switch carriers and get locked into an AT&T contract. You can use the phone to set up phone service when you get to the UK - either prepaid or postpaid. When you visit the US, you can always use the phone to set up a prepaid plan with either AT&T or T-Mobile - this may be a more cost-effective option if you are only going to be staying in the US for short periods of time. While I am partial to this option, due to the cost of maintaining a dormant account, one downside is that you will lose your US phone number. That may or may not be a dealbreaker to you.

BTW, some of this also depends on what you want to do with your current Verizon line. If someone else in your family can use your line while you are abroad, then give it to them. If you are out of contract, just cancel.

 

With Verizon there are a few "world" phones that also have GSM in them, but it is very expensive to use any US phone overseas ($1 to maybe $5 per minute depending on the country you are in). What you could do is get one of those phones and have the SIM slot unlocked so you can get a local SIM for use in the UK and then use same piece of hardware when you come home, but as Scrumhalf said, then you are also paying for phone service in the US that you aren't actually using. The most cost effective thing would be to get another phone for overseas use and suspend your US service while you are gone. Now if cost isn't that much of an issue and you really wanted to take your VZW phone with to keep in touch with your friends back home you could get a World capable Blackberry like the Storm or the new Tour that launches next week, get the global data plan ($65 per month), and use mostly just data on that phone (BB messenger, IM clients, Facebook, email) without much if any talking and that wouldn't be to expensive considering what all it gives you.

 

At a $1.29 a minute for calls sent and received, you can run up a HUGE bill. Also, any voice mails are double charged. Yea, they are doubled.

Get yourself two phones if you are going to come back on vacation. Unlocked phones are great and all if you want to keep the same phone but it seams like for someone who is not familiar with the concept should just get a prepaid phone. The Skype prepaid phone is 40 pounds and the cheapest prepaid phone for other carriers run about 20 pounds.

 

You may be able to. Do a google search. I know you can get some SIM cards over here online.

I am personally just going to wait for me. That way I can go into a wireless providers store and know exactly what I get without having to deal with an online third party retailer.

 

You can get a basic unlocked quadband (will work in the US and UK) phone for less than 100 from Amazon,ebay, dell, newegg, etc. Get to the UK, put your sim card in it and you are good to go.

If you want to maintain your US number, you can port it to tmobile or AT&T prepaid, put $100 topup on it and that keeps it active for another year. With tmobile, any additional topup extends the life for another year. Even the $10 topup. I have friends that are back and forth between here and other countries and that is how they keep their US number going.

 

Topup coucher. It's credit that you buy and add to to a prepaid phone in order to use it. Just like if you buy a prepaid phone in the UK, you will need to buy credit in order to use it.

 

Hi,It sounds good.Thanks for the valuable information.........

 

This is awesome, great info.

I'm about to head to the UK as well and this Three company's Skype deal looks awesome. I'm going to check out whether to buy a phone ahead of time or wait to get to the UK and get it from them.

I have a further complication though. After 9 months in the UK I'm going to be heading to Africa to do research and will probably get a job there after that. I don't know what country I'll go to but wonder if I could buy a phone that could work in the UK and then in other countries after that. I assume that different countries have different kinds of networks(like my phone from Thailand didn't work in Nicaragua with a Nica SIM),

but is there a list of countries between which phones could travel with only changing the SIM? Would that be an unlocked quad band phone?

Thanks so much!

 

I've just found some resources re country lists with GSM frequencies
List of GSM cell phone frequencies in use by country
Do you need a Dual Tri or Quad Band GSM Cell Phone

I would love to get an unlocked quadband with Skype... my next search. Anyone know of any?

 

To cover you everywhere there is GSM, just get an unlocked quad-band phone. In a nutshell, North America and some South America countries use 850/1900 bands. The rest of the world, Europe, Africa, etc. used 900/1800 bands. A quadband (850/900/1800/1900) should set you straight. They are quite cheap these days.

 

Great, thanks. I'm checking on Three's website now and there's a lot of tri- and quad- band phones available that will allow free Skype calls. A couple of questions though:

1- can I assume that any UK phone(one on this list 3 Store - Skypephone) will allow me to swap out SIM cards in different countries, after I leave the UK?

2- is there a good site that compares phones? I've used CNET for general e-gadgets but wonder if there's a better cell specific site.

Thanks!

 

For comparing specs, I like Phone Scoop . search for a phone, in the seach box, and then you can compare other phones side by side - VF

 

Excellent site.

Will any unlocked phone be able to take a SIM card? I mean, if I buy an unlocked quad-band phone here, how do I know it will take a SIM over there? Is that exactly what unlocked means?

Thanks

 

ekearney,

That's exactly right. An unlocked GSM phone will operate with the SIM of any GSM service provider. (I say it that way, because Sprint's Nextel handsets use SIMs for account info, too. It's another digital radio standard called iDEN.)

COtech

 

Cool thanks.

 

Just a note, all British networks lock their handsets except O2, who lock some, but not others. You will have to unlock the handset if you wish to use a SIM card from a different network. Alternatively buy a handset from the Carphone Warehouse, the majority of the handsets they sell are unlocked with a few exceptions: all 3 phones sold anywhere in the UK are always locked; the iPhone is locked; networks specific handsets may be locked.

 

So it's a much better idea to buy an unlocked phone ahead of time and just plug in a SIM on arrival. Sweet.

Hey ScotsBoy I'm just starting to look into plans in the UK and wonder if there's a nice forum over there that focus' on the Blighty's providers specifically?

 

Another UK/Sykpe/3 question.

I'm very interested in the Nokia e63. I found it listed on 3's list of phones on its site which can use Skype. But on Skype's site, their list of phones which can handle Skype's mobile app, Skype Lite, doesn't include the e63, it includes the e61, e64, and 371.

I'm nervous to buy the e63 if it isn't on Skype's list, but could their list simply be outdated? or incomplete? The list appears the same on Skype's US and UK sites.

 

I'm chatting with a Three representative right now and they're telling me that if I bring my own unlocked e63 to the UK they won't support the free Skype program advertised on their website. Are they just saying this to scare people into buying their Nokia's?

 

What kind of support would you need from them anyway. Probably none! I have nimbuzz and fring setup on my E63 and you can use Skype and other voip clients via these applications. I also have voipCheap setup via the E63's voip client. And all is working without problems.

 

Nice! I got some info an a UK forum and they said that 3 has a unique Skype client that I wouldn't be able to use if I bring my own over there. This sounds pretty good though, both Nimbuzz and Fring. Can I ask you a seemingly obvious question:O, when you say that you use them over voip, does that mean over an internet connection? Or using the regular phone connection? Also, why use both Nimbuzz and Fring?

Thanks!

 

Three replaces the generic firmware on handsets with their own so it is conceivable that the standard Skype client wouldn't work on Three's network. If you are only going to be in the UK for a year or less you might want to just buy a Three PAYG handset once you're here. They can be pretty cheap. You probably won't be able to pass a credit check for a contract with handset, but you could give it a try and go for Three's 6 month contract or even a SIM only contract with a Three PAYG handset.

Three have excellent 3G coverage and they use Orange's 2G network for 2G coverage. However, their customer service has come in for criticism.

PAYG is quite an expensive option in the UK if you use your phone regularly, but as I said before you may have no other choice initially given that you will have no credit history here. I would still try to apply for a short term contract or a SIM only contract as they will be much better value. You will need to have a UK bank account that allows direct debits and a 'chip and pin' debit/credit card or proof of address and proof of signature to apply for any type of contract.

As for forums ...

I see you found Mobile-Review. I can heartily recommend M-R, but then I'm biased since I am a Super Moderator there and write the news for their English language site. I would also recommend you check out the following forums:

SE-NSE Home - Sony Ericsson Forum and Community & Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog - I am an admin on this site and co-own it. It's focused primarily on Sony Ericsson, but we do have sections for general mobile chat.

Mobiwoo - mobiles in the wild - another site I help run, it's a blog that focuses on general news.

Esato - All about mobile phones. Reviews, News, rumors, free Sony Ericsson themes and community - Another Sony Ericsson site (SE is very popular in Europe), and again it has significant sections on other mobile manufacturers/networks.

What Mobile - phone news, reviews, accessories, forum, first looks, applications and more - What Mobile - a general mobile site.

Apologies for the shameless self-promotion!

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me. You can find me on various mobile forums as scotsboyuk and on twitter @scotsboyuk.

 

Great man! Thanks for all the references, I'll prob have more questions soon.