Anyone know what network will work in India and Nepal ?

alison74

I am about to go to India and Nepal next week.

I am taking my old PAYG phone which is tesco / o2 sim card.

It doesn't apparently work in India or Nepal

Is this common, or is it just o2 ? Anyone recommend a network that will work in these 2 countries.

I dont want to buy sims when I get there as you can only apparently use them in the part of India you are in, and I can not be bothered getting 6 chips for India and another one from Nepal

its only really for emergencies / texts.

Thanks in advance

espresso

Enter the make and model of your handset together with the selected country into this webpage to see which operators Orange has agreements to use.

If you then select one of the companies you can get the costs for calls and texts.

redux

Despite what you said about a local SIM card, I think you should reconsider, as Airtel or Hutch will charge you about Rs 2 or 3 per minute for local calls, and Rs 15 to call UK

Both now have national roaming, and call charges are only slightly higher. Hutch seems to have a monthly fee of Rs 49 for this, but can't see on Airtel.

http://www.hutch.in/home/index.asp
http://www.airtelworld.com/prepaid_landing.jsp

Most UK payg SIMs will cost around £1 per minute (or more) for both incoming and outgoing calls. Sms with UK SIM will be about 40 or 50p a go ( I didn't find the local SIM sms costs ...).

But take an O2 payg SIM though, as you get one free call up to a minute and one free sms per week - just enough to call home and give your new number.

Nepal has two networks - I'd be surprised if you can find roaming agreements for UK payg networks

Nepal Telecom http://www.ntc.net.np/nsd/mob_prepaid_int.php
- tariff on http://www.ntc.net.np/tariff/mob_tariff.php

Spice Nepal Private Ltd (Mero Mobile) is fairly new (Sept), and I can't find a website yet

... your phone will need unlocking; and I think a dual band phone would be necessary in India

http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml