Pay as You Go sim USA

tinkerbell212

Does anybody know whether it is possible to buy a pay as you go Sim card in the states? Seems cheaper for texting then using my own.

WolfSong2000

most USA phones have a built in sim card, so sim cards on their own are harder to come by than in the UK...if you have a British phone that you know will worth with an American sim card then I know that AT&T offer sim cards (although they can be a little tricky to get a hold of if you're not American for some reason). Alternative s to just buy a cheap pre-pay phone over there...again, I did this with AT&T (have used tracfone and Net10 in the past, but they were expensive and not very useful). Can't fault AT&T...other options would be Verizon (seem to be american equivalent of Vodafone), Virgin possibly, etc...there's a new (as far as I'm aware as I hadn't seen it before this year) company called Boost mobile that seem to offer good deals, but I have never used them, so can't say.

Worth remembering that you pay to receive calls (and pretty sure also texts) as well as send them.

tinkerbell212

Thanks for that information! Can you buy the prepay phones at the airport? Or would it be radioshack? (Trying to investigate costs before going!!)

WolfSong2000

I've had real trouble tracking them down at airports...best bets are to try ebay if you want to get one before you go (can always get a cheap second hand tracfone off ebay to start with and replace it later), or go to places like Walmart. Radioshack from memory don't stock them...but this was a few years back, and could have just been the area I was in.

For me Walmart have always been the best...good selection usually of all major phone companies. Any other questions, just ask!

eslick

virgin in the US dont use sims, try a t mobile or at&t store think I paid $15 from a T mobile store including $5 airtime last year, year before had bought them from ebay but there werent any last year that would deliver to the UK and they expire after 30 days. Dont forget you are charged for incoming calls as well in the US.

Walmart and Target and the likes sell trac phones and other pay as you go but we found it cheaper to by the sim cards on their own

orb_3

A couple of times I've just gone into a tmobile store and bought a sim with $20 credit to go in an old unlocked phone. No problem at all although they charge for the sim (as previously mentioned).

Another occasion, I bought a tmobile sim with $20 credit from an independent store and he didn't charge for it - I probably should remember to do that next time.

M4RKM

at&t do sims, just go in to any at&t store, state you are a tourist so you don't have a SSN, and they'll let you have one as long as you top it up with something.

T-Mobile are the same... however, the phone number will expire if you don't keep it topped up.

M

wagster_2

I am currently in LA and i went into Radioshack to buy a payg phone.

Cheapest 1 they had were out of stock but had the option to buy a phone on ATT&T, T-Mobile or Virgin. They didn't just sell the simcard though

Went into ATT&T instead and bought a Nokia 2610 pre-paid which cost me $29.99 and then added $25 of credit onto it. No problem with being from the UK either.

Now this is where it can get confusing lol.

AT&T's pre-paid cards are called gophone and you get the option to pick which plan you what to be on. hopefully this link will explain it better. http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-plans/pyg-cell-phone-plans.jsp

I took the $.25 simple plan which basically gives me all local and national calls at the rate of 25c/min, domestic texts cost 20c each sending and receiving and international texts 25c to send and 20c to receive.

Forgot to add if you want to just buy the simcard then there is no cost for the simcard just the cost of getting how much credit you want put on it. I bought just the simcard aswell and put $25 credit on it and total cost was $25.

paulinespens

Here is a new one for you all.

www.iwirelesshome.com

The phones and top up cards are available from the Kroger family of stores which includes Fred Meyers, Ralphs, Dillons.

Its free to receive a text message even international

20c a minute to call England

its 20c a minute for calls on there basic plans and you get free minutes if you spend money on your store loyalty card.

McAzrael

You can buy the sims before you go from ebay - I've done it before. Alternatively, if you have quite a fancy phone and are stopping in hotels/motels with free wifi then this works: http://www.truphone.com/ It works the other way too - use your home wifi to call America to book hotels and the like quite cheaply.