Mobile (cell) phones in America

Creamy Goodness

Heya's

I'm going to be in America for 3 months soon and i want to get a phone so that i can be contactable over there.

Basically it would be for calls between other mobiles (cells - gotta get used to the lingo ) and so people from Ireland can contact me.

I have an pwned iPhone 2.5g which I'm debating whether or not to take with me depending on what phone deals are like over there.

I've heard there's no such thing as pay as you go over there? is there any truth to that? it would be a royal pain in the balls to get a contract for 3 months.

Also who are the best carriers? I'll be in Chicago mainly but short hop trips are being planned for New York, Boston and Canada.

ardmacha

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

Eoin Macollamh

The problem with using an unlocked iPhone over there is that, though there is such a thing as pre-pay, there's no such thing as reasonably-priced pre-pay data. There used to be, but AT&T phased it out. So you'd probably be better off just buying a new pre-pay phone over there or resigning yourself to only using the iPhone on wifi (which is, thankfully, more prevalent).

Creamy Goodness

ohh i really only want to use a network for 2G talk and text no data is required at all.

cruzzo08

Perhaps Tracfone or AT&T Go-Phone may be of use to you. Both prepaid and can be topped up online or instore. Phones can be purchased for as low as ten dollars online for a refurbished model, But are cheap anyway. Have used Tracfone and find them ok, a lil pricy as you lose units receiving a call as well as making one. However they are good value for calling Ireland as they have an international Voip number which charges the same as any other US call.

vinnycoyne

AT&T GoPhone SIM card will do the job. You can even use data if you really need it (although it's pretty expensive). I have one that I use for business trips in my own iPhone. Just remember to turn off push services and set your email to manual fetching.

Creamy Goodness

cool just looking at AT&T site and go phone looks good.

i think i read somewhere that there are free AT&T to AT&T calls on gosims, but i can't find where i read it now. there's a group of us going over so if this was true, we'd all just get gosims and be able to call each other for free (well minus the $1 service charge a day if we went for the 10c a minute tariff).

kevinmcc

the AT&T and T-Mobile pay as you go options usually work out expensive due to being charged for receiving calls and texts. Your best bet is to go with Metro PCS, they are like a pay as you go, there's no contract and you just pay monthly in advance. If I remember it included free local and long distance calling and free text messaging back home to Ireland, pretty handy. I also had a US number I could dial which would give me free calls back home from it Only downside is Metro PCS don't use sim cards so your going to have to buy a phone from them.