Mobile Phones in America

Fabio

Hi guys,

Going to be spending 5 weeks in the States in less than a fortnights time and roaming charges would kill me so I was thinking of aksing Meteor to unlock my phone for me so that I could get a SIM card in the USA and hopefully things would work out that bit cheaper then as there is a friend of mine coming with me and I think he may want to do the same.

Would anyone recommend any particular networks or plans or whatever?

Ruu_Old

Make sure your phone is triband to work here. You are going to be limited to the GSM networks I assume so that is T-Mobile and AT&T as your main choices. CDMA type networks the standard over here I guess unlike GSM is the majority of the world. I just use a T-Mobile prepaid sim, you can get them in Walmart and nearly any shopping centre (sorry 'mall') will have a mobile shop or a kiosk of some sort.

Fabio

Thanks for that Ruu, sound out.

Is it expensive to use mobiles in the US compared to Ireland do you know?

boarddotie

Fabio wrote: »

Is it expensive to use mobiles in the US compared to Ireland do you know?

So expensive, its sickening. I dont know the exact prices but seing and recieveing texts are 20c each. Ringing (and no one answering) costs 20c and for a regular 'quick' call just making an arrngement is 75c (wheter u call or answer). Im on AT&T

Alos anotehr thing I have noted is that it doesnt tell you when your credits low, you just cant ring. And if u try and send a text w/o credit it just doesnt send yet also doesnt alrent you to the fact that it didnt send. Mayb its just my $hitty prepaid cell. The final caution is that if you dont have credit and a person calls you they wont be able to get through to you and they wont know why.

I just top up on $50 and hope for the best as topping up over the phone is a nigthmare if you dont have a US address and an Irish CC and not all shops will carry the prepaid topup cards.

So no long phonecalls and defo no 'text conversations' the way we have in Ireland!! Also come cell numbers are recycled so normally I dont answer a number I dont recognise cos I will get charged either way.

Hope that helps!

FockRoysh

Holy crap I did not know mobile charges were so expensive in the US! Im heading over for 6 weeks this week and was intending on just buying a cheap mobile over there instead of using my irish one and getting destroyed with excessive charges.

Are those charges universal to all mobile networks over there?

netwhizkid

Don't prepaid customers in the US also get their "credits" (You buy credits not money) charged when they receive calls also. I remember my sister saying something about this a few years ago while on T-Mobile in NYC.

aynon

If your going over there for 6 weeks your going to have to go pre pay, as contract, is a min 6 month, and you need a credit score to get one.

i got my self a "virgin mobile"(pronounced Virgin mobe ill) "cell" for $20 and topped it up for another $20 and that did me for a few weeks, of texts and calls, think is it would be absolutely useless if you want to bring it back cos it has a built in sim and cant be unlocked. but for $40 what do you expect. good disposable phone, but is going to take about 48 hours to activate a phone and get a number, unlike here phones dont come pre assigned with a number. and you will have to a have an address to tie it into, but once your up and running you wont have to worry about what address if your roughly in the same state.

just be carefully changing states, if you are you could be getting charge a "long distance" if your doing a long distance "home phone call, you might get doubly charges. i know i did once or twice while traveling.