International Travel to Asia

Your best plan is to have an unlocked phone that allows you to use local SIM cards in the places you travel to, or take a global roaming SIM like eKit. Local SIMs will give best rates for local calling.

For most countries on your list (with the exception of Korea) a quad-band GSM phone will suffice. Using a mobile phone in North Korea might be dangerous to your well-being and South Korea will require that your phone supports 3G (UMTA) on 2100 frequency.

 

You didn't mention your current phone and service provider. If you have AT&T or T-Mobile, they use GSM and you should be fine. If you have Verizon or Sprint, they use CDMA and that technology might not be available in Asia.

In any case, you can contact your cellular provider, and tell them you plan to travel overseas, and they should be able to give you a little more info regarding the possibilities.

Generally speaking, I do the same as dmapr and have an unlocked GSM phone, so I can travel to any country and easily buy a local SIM card.

 

If you need to keep your US number while you are travelling(for people in the US to be able to get hold of you by dialing a local number) and use it for local calling while overseas, then your provider should have some international calling plans. I know AT&T does for sure.

As mentioned previously, you do need a GSM phone but it does need to be unlocked if you are going to use an US SIM. Keep in mind that even with a calling plan International Roaming and Long Distance is quite expensive.

 

If you mean the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon, then no it will not.

Basically there are two differeny technologies, CDMA and GSM. Verizon is a CDMA provider and all their phones are CDMA.

 

SIM card is a little smartcard that holds your account information in the world of GSM phones. What it basically means is that you can have a single physical device and just swap these little cards in and out and that'll allow you to have service from different providers. eKit is one of those providers who offer roaming in multiple countries at prices that are cheaper than roaming rates of the most providers.

 

Also, Verizon has some CDMA + GSM phones. Using Verizon services are a costly endeavor. I believe there are some Blackberry phones and 1 or 2 feature phones that are capable of international roaming. Such phones are unlockable... I just don't know Verizon's unlocking policies.

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Some international capable phones:
DROID PRO, DROID Incredible 2, Blackberry Torch, Blackberry Bold. I think. AMAZON has a basic international capable phone that works on Verizon.

The Sony Xperia is another international capable smartphone. The international capable basic phone on Amazon is called the ZTE Adamant.


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If you have Verizon, you need to have a "Global" phone. Go to their shop, and select "Features: GLOBAL READY". There are the phones that you can use overseas. According tho the list, they have over 100 phones that fir that category, so I'm sure you'll find something

Set Your Location

If you aren't sure, call Verizon or stop in a shop, I'm sure someone there can walk you thru the steps you need to do in order to use your phone outside of the US.

 

That sounds rather fishy lol! Theoretically, most of the phones can be used outside the USA, most of them are pretty doorstops in most countries. The true international phones will have a GSM SIM card slot, narrowing the field significantly.

Applying the filter on the website narrows the choices to 30, RadioRaiders

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Unless you're using a smartphone you're going to have to do "something else" in Korea since they use CDMA at a different frequency than does the US. I believe their 3G is compatible with US 3G.

 

It is not.

 

Nice answer. It is not what?

 

My interpretation of dmaprs reply is that "South Korean 3G is not compatible with US 3G".

I believe technically it is the same version of UMTS used in the US and Europe, it's just on the 2100MHz band (like Europe), and the US it's used on the 850MHz and 1800MHz bands. If your US bought phone has UMTS 2100 on it, you should be ok, I believe.

Here's what AT&T's roaming page says:
AT&T

 

US 3G runs on 850 & 1900MHz for AT&T and 1700MHz/2100MHz for T-Mobile. AT&T has in the past sold a few phones that had 3G on those bands only, while S. Korea does indeed run 3G on 2100MHz, making it incompatible with the US (strictly speaking). Much like European GSM is incompatible with US GSM

So basically my point is that its' much easier to just say "you need 3G (UMTS) 2100MHz capable phone in Korea" as I did in my original reply than to try and sort out the mess of frequencies comprising US 3G (and let us not even bring VZW "3G" into the picture or delve into how T-Mobile runs uplink and downlink on different bands, making their 2100MHz different from European 2100MHz). Have I got your head spinning yet?

 

Nah, it takes alot more than that to spin my head

 

Well, good, 'cause mine's spinning

 

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All wireless phones use separate uplink and downlink frequencies and not separate bands. The band we are talking about with T-Mobile is AWS, which is Band IV. The downlink frequencies are between 2100 -2155 MHz. The uplink frequencies are between 1710-1755 MHz. On the other hand, Band I, which is used in Europe also has separate uplink and downlink frequencies. The downlink frequencies are between 2100-2170 MHz. The uplink frequencies are between 1920-1980 MHz. One should refer to a band either as a single frequency number, a band number or a common name. One would say 1700 MHz band, AWS or Band IV in the case of T-Mobile's 3G service. One should never show two frequencies for a single band. If we followed that practice, then the 2100 MHz band used in Europe would be called 1900/2100. That would cause more confusion if the phone had both Band IV and Band I. You would show 1700/2100 /1900/2100. It would also give the false impression that a phone having the 2100 MHz/Band I would work on the T-Mobile network in 3G mode.

 

Hi BigBubba,
I think you should go for international SIM card. In it you will get free international roaming for some countries and low call rates.

 

Local calls will be more expensive.

 

The local call will not be expensive. They charge minimum for local calls. And provide free roaming in other countries. Depends upon the providers and plans.