PAYG SIM in USA

sozbox

Hi,

I am heading to the states in the summer and I was wondering about using mobiles over there.
Would it be better to set up roaming on my current O2 SIM card (Bill Pay) or to buy a SIM pack over there and put that into my phone?

My current phone is unlocked so there's no hassle there.

So if anyone has experience with this let me know what is best or cheaper!

Thanks.

optiplexgx270

Well if you set up roaming on O2 you will have to pay just to receive calls as well as make them. I would either recomend a PAYG in the states Or something along the lines of this crowd: http://www.sim4travel.com


Google also got this. http://www.wirelessforums.org/uk-telecom-mobile/re-sim-cards-usa-8359.html

andy0

Definitely get a US SIM card

Info on networks and tariffs - http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

None of the global SIMs, such as that mentioned in the previous post, have cheap roaming there either.

Your phone needs to be tri- or quadband, and they use 850 and 1900 MHz

Solair

A quad band phone will give you significantly better coverage in the US.

Triband gives you the two European GSM frequencies 900 and 1800Mhz and one of the North American freqencies : 1900mhz. Quadband gives you 850Mhz as well so you're more likely to have a signal, particularly in busy areas.

Also, it's worth noting that they tend to charge for incoming as well as outgoing calls on US networks as there's no distinction between a mobile number and a landline number. You'll get issued a SIM with a number in your local area code which will look exactly like a landline number.

Callers won't know you're a mobile, but they also don't pay any more to call you. So, the networks typically charge you the same rate for incomming and outgoing calls.

Other than that it's not too unlike GSM anywhere else.

Also make sure that your mobile charger can actually work with 110V 60Hz. Some are 230V 50Hz only.

It's also often better to buy a charger over there as you'll only end up having to carry around a bulky adaptor to plug it in and US sockets tend to not provide much grip. So, if you've a big phone charger plugged in via an Irish-US pin adaptor it tends to fall out

trixter

I lived in the US for a bit (about 30 years) and have had some experience with "prepaid" (as its phrased there, PAYG isnt a common term, nor is "topup" but that isnt important much unless you go to talk to some representative who in all likelyhood will be confused if you dont say "prepaid").

The biggest thing is coverage, not everyone has the same coverage everywhere, it depends on where you are, and more imporatantly where you plan on traveling to.

There are some flat rate providers that have no contract.
Cricket and metro pcs both offer something around $30-40/mo unlimited minutes per month. Metro pcs gives you unlimited international SMS for $3/mo extra with some plans. They dont have coverage everywhere though, and roaming is generally forbidden. Smaller companies like surewest offer the same type of deal.

These plans are good if you have coverage where you are and only plan rare trips outside their coverage area. While they do have a "fair use policy" (although again its not called that, its just terms embedded into their user agreement) but generaly its 5000-10000 minutes per month. I have had reports of people using in excess of 10,000 minutes per month and not having any issues.

Metropcs, surewest and I think cricket are CDMA so a gsm handset wont work. If its a short trip this probably isnt the best option in that case.

Cingular/AT&T as well as tmobile have reasonable coverage. Tmobile owns most of the towers they use in the eastern half of the US, cingular the western and the two basically trade to get national coverage, so network footprints will likely be the same. Depending on how you use the phone the plans could be better with one vs the other. Cingular/AT&T and Tmobile are GSM (with some 3g in some places but mostly 2.5g). You will need a tri/quad band phone though since north america uses different frequencies than Europe.

Verizon offers some prepaid solutions, although I dont know much about them. There are many other companies that offer similar solutions as well, and I know even less about them.

In general if you buy a handset in the US it will be locked to the provider. If you have your own you will likely confuse the sales agents (most of which arent employees of the store since even if the logo is on the outside of the store its likely its an independant shop and not a company store). They know nothing generally when it comes to locked phones or hardware compatibility. They know even less generally about international phone issues other than what it costs on the plan you are on since they can look at a rate sheet for that. Some, the more rare employees, actually know quite a bit. Feel lucky if you can find one of those.

A side note, pay with a mixture of paper money and coins whenever possible, especially if say the total is $1.38 and you pay with $2.13 (to get only 25 cent peices back), it will confuse most sales clerks. When I do this I get a good chuckle over it to this day it still amazes me here in ireland how many shop keepers can do basic math that way

krudler

i was in canada/america recently and the phones over there are much older models than we use,i was showing people my k800i and they were amazed by it,and whats the deal with canadian networks where you pay for incoming calls?! its like roaming only for domestic calls as well,makes no sense

trixter

krudler wrote:

i was in canada/america recently and the phones over there are much older models than we use,i was showing people my k800i and they were amazed by it,and whats the deal with canadian networks where you pay for incoming calls?! its like roaming only for domestic calls as well,makes no sense

In a few places in the world there isnt a distinction between CMRS providers (mobile phone companies) and landlines, but there is a cost to connect the two networks. That cost is generally why there is a higher charge in say Ireland to call between a mobile and a landline.

The biggest problem with this is the phone company that the call originated from pays the company that the call terminates to. This is actually a fair arrangement, since if you are on meteor and call a landline meteor can bill you but the landline company cant yet their network infrastructure is required to complete the call. The landline company bills meteor for that usage.

In the case of receiving calls on your mobile the landline operator would pay the mobile operator to complete it, the mobile operator then 'double bills' the customer ...

Sprint/Nextel used to and probably still does have unlimited inbound calling. Boost is their prepaid solution, and may offer the same, I dont know. Nextel/boost uses iDen which wont work here so a handset would not be that valuable for a short trip.

I do not know anymore which providers have unlimited inbound, although there was a push at one time in America to make that happen. Many still bill you a 'minute' which is fine if you have unlimited, not so good if you are prepaid.

Urban Weigl

T-Mobile seems to have the best deals over there. I recently got 600 minutes on T-Mobile prepay for the equivalent of €15 including delivery to Ireland. Worked great, they were already registered and set up.

Urban Weigl

Finally, because T-Mobile operates almost exclusively a 1900 MHz network, any tri-band phone you might get here will work absolutely perfectly. It is definitely worth it if you're travelling to the states for more than a week or two.

sozbox

Thanks for all the well-informed replies.
I'm going for 3 weeks, maybe more so I think roaming would be a waste of time.
I'll be using my k750i which I think is tri-band.

If anything else comes to mind be sure to post it here.

Davy

Urban Weigl wrote:

T-Mobile seems to have the best deals over there. I recently got 600 minutes on T-Mobile prepay for the equivalent of €15 including delivery to Ireland. Worked great, they were already registered and set up.

that is jst calls to US while in the US im guessin? know what there like for calling back to ireland? im going over in june, i was looking on the net for good prices but still seems pricey 4 what i seen, didnt see t-mobile tho

Urban Weigl

davton wrote:

that is jst calls to US while in the US im guessin? know what there like for calling back to ireland? im going over in june, i was looking on the net for good prices but still seems pricey 4 what i seen, didnt see t-mobile tho

There are various access numbers for that, where you dial a regular US number, and than dial home to Ireland. There's even one that lets you do this for free, for calling landlines back in Ireland at least. I forget the name though... I'll post it if I can find it again.

Urban Weigl

Found it: http://www.allfreecalls.net/

Enjoy!

Update: Just to confirm what I said in my previous post, you will be able to use this service to call landlines back in Ireland for free, NOT mobile phones. However, it's still great for keeping in touch with your family and friends as long as they have a landline where you can reach them. Free beats paying €1 a minute.

Update 2: Seems like allfreecalls.net is temporarily unavailable. Hopefully it will be back soon. There are of course other services like it, or you could get a calling card where you dial a toll free or local number in the US, followed by the Irish number. Not free, but likely to cost only a few cents a minute to landlines at least.

Update 3: If you have access to broadband in the US, use Skype to call back home for 2 cents a minute.

Davy

cheers 4 dat,, that will do me grand

andy0

All those free callthrough operations in America have been closed for several weeks.

There are loads of calling cards that would cost about 2 cents on top of the mobile charges, or 2 cents from a landline via a toll-free number