irish mobiles compatable with foreign sim cards?

catspring

sorry, thread title's not great but didn't know what else to call it....
i heard that you can get chips to put into mobile phones so that you can then put european sim cards in the phone instead of buying a foreign mobile.
anyone heard of these?
are they illegal?

aidan_walsh

Unless you get them from either your phones manufacturer or your service provider, then I would imagine they are...

griffdaddy

you can just get the phone unlocked or sim free and put a foreign sim card in provided its the same eh.... whats the word.... bandwidth? you know? the whole tri band thingy? sorry first day back at school after the midterm

whizzbang

When people say "chip" it is most likly that it is the SIM card you put into your phone.

Any SIM should work in any GSM phone so long as the the phone is not locked to a SIM / Network and the SIM isn't locked to a phone.

So if you are heading over to Europe you can buy a local SIM card, stick it into your unlocked irish phone and away you go!

catspring

thanks for the replies.
i basically just wanted to see what the craic was with this before heading down to my phone shop to see what they can do for me.
didn't think it'd go down too well if it was illegal of somefink...

thecivvie

I have a UK chip that I put into my Irish mobile never had any problems, though I had to get the fone unlocked

Sean

Dathai

Im just curious Im thinking of buying a nokia 7650 off ebay.co.uk and Im not sure want specsifications I would need to use the British phone.Can someone tell me what specs I would need?Or would I be able to use it at all here?

thecivvie

Originally posted by Dathai
Im just curious Im thinking of buying a nokia 7650 off ebay.co.uk and Im not sure want specsifications I would need to use the British phone.Can someone tell me what specs I would need?Or would I be able to use it at all here?

Just make sure that the phone is unlocked, ie available to any network. I purchased a Siemens SL55 via a UK freeads paper saving a small fortune over the Irish price and it works fine

Sean

Dathai

Yeah the phone is unlocked.It seems like a great deal it comes with the whole kit too.Im going to bid for it.Thanks by the way

thecivvie

NP, I learnt a lot here so nice to pass a bit on

Sean

catspring

just want to check, to get my phone unlocked i just bring it to the phone shop and they'll do it, this right??

BigMoose

Depends what the phone is. If it's a Nokia then you can do it yourself from various unlock tools available online (there was one attached to a thread here not so long ago that worked perfectly). There are sites that will give you the codes if you give them your IMEI too.

Most shops wont be able to unlock it (I believe there are some in Dublin that will do it for a cost, but not sure which ones) but your network will. I believe for prepaid they have a minimum spend on tops ups before they will do it for free. Give their CS a call and ask...