Using a USA mobile phone in UK

torbrex

I have a friend coming over from the US later this year and I was wondering if she will be able to use her mobile phone while she is here or would the roaming charges be too huge to make it impractical.

Any calls that she makes will be to my mobileand others here, her family in Germany and possibly calls or texts home to California.

I am not sure what network or handset that she uses but I was looking to get an idea of practicality if possible, I can email her for details.

corf999

If I recall correctly phones from Verzon or Sprint wont work at all, they use completely different technology i.e. not GSM.

Phones from ATT or tmobile should work to a certain degree, the 3g bands may be different and not work, but 2g should get a signal to allow calls, texts etc.

If she is on tmobile, one of their plans is pretty good abroad, but she would need to check with her provider.

grumbler

corf999 wrote: »

If I recall correctly phones from Verzon or Sprint wont work at all, they use completely different technology i.e. not GSM.

http://support.verizonwireless.com/support/faqs/InternationalServicesandRoaming/global_phone_roaming.html

torbrex wrote: »

...
Any calls that she makes will be to my mobileand others here, her family in Germany and possibly calls or texts home to California.

Consider getting UK '3' PAYG sim for her (needs 3g phone with UMTS 2100):
http://www.three.co.uk/Store/Pay_As_You_Go_Price_Plans
>Save on PAYG international calls.

macman

Any modern triband handset should work OK. Without knowing what it is, impossible to advise.

DCFC79

I was going to suggest that everyone installs whatsapp but its dependant on everyone having a smart phone.

torbrex

Thanks guys

I will need to get in touch with her to get details of what handset she has and network that she is on but you have given me a few pointers to get started with :T

chris-j

I think the US networks make ours look reasonable. With calling from the UK, it will almost certainly be cheaper to get a UK SIM for her to use while here.
Order a giffgaff SIM from their website and calls back to US and Canada are just 3p per minute to mobile or landline, Germany is 4p per minute to landline and 5p to mobile (Yes it is cheaper to call overseas than UK numbers).
UK is probably one of the easiest countries to get a local SIM in.

You could also try Lebara or Lycatel who sell in loads of small newsagents and street vendors.

If you get SIM in advance she could provide family with the local number in advance in case they need to contact her.

Just avoid the main network sim cards as they are costly, although still cheaper than probably than using US SIM overseas.

redux

Not long ago, the answer wouild have been avoid at all costs, as roaming with US networks was very expensive.

But things have substantially improved for customers on some networks

http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-9455

This says that on some of their plans roaming data and texts are included at no extra cost, calls 20 cents a minute

I'd suggest your visitor might choose to use 2 phones, one with a UK SIM you've obtained.

There is plenty of choice of UK SIMs and calling methods for cheap calls to USA, including on main networks. An O2 international SIM is cheaper than giffgaff for example, 2p/min to USA, and also look at the callthrough provider Yourcallworld, which uses a prefix access dialling system to call there from most main networks (not Vodafone)

If there will be a lot of calls to and from home, then O2's international favourites might be useful, with 3000 minutes for £10, and including an incoming USA number.

Or get a Toggle Mobile SIM, calls to USA 3p/min, and this can also have a USA incoming number (and others, including Germany) added.

But if she can use those T-mobile USA possibilities, maybe texts can cover a lot of the messages to and from home.

You could also look into cheap calls from your landline, or using VoIP from home or using mobile data. I don't know if T-mobile USA supports VoIP using its data; maybe I can find out if necessary. And you could use a VoIP brand to set up a USA landline number to be forwarded to a UK mobile very chesply, to help with calls from home

Plenty of possibilities ...

Edit: I've assumed this would be a phone with all frequency bands. If not, USA uses different bands to here, so a budget dualband phone from either country would not work in the other.

gjchester

torbrex wrote: »

I have a friend coming over from the US later this year and I was wondering if she will be able to use her mobile phone while she is here or would the roaming charges be too huge to make it impractical.

I don't think anyone has mentioned it but she needs to make sure the phone is unlocked, and as others have said on the GSM system.


If you post the make and model We can tell if it will work, but she would nod to ask of the provider as to the lock status..

macman

DCFC79 wrote: »

I was going to suggest that everyone installs whatsapp but its dependant on everyone having a smart phone.

Whatsapp can also run on some dumb phones with 2G only (such as the Nokia Asha, which still uses Symbian), but it's not what you'd call a great user experience.

torbrex

I have been in touch with my friend and given her details of you guys suggestions and she has decided not to use her phone in the UK and to use her mum's phone when in Germany.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions :T