USA travel

nuker

Which is the cheapest way to use my mobile phone (Nokia N95 on O2) in the USA? All advice appreciated.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

Calls to and from your phone with your current SIM are 99p/min.

If you search around you can buy a world SIM for around £15 (maybe cheaper) and you'll get a cheaper tariff.

Can't advise you on any sites as I'm at work and the sites are blocked.

Browntoa

you will need to pay O2 to unlock the phone thought, the codes are NOT free for those

bravoseven

The global SIM cards are cost prohibitive in the USA, in my opinion local SIM cards are the best way to go. I travel to the states regularly and use a roaming service called uk2abroad (see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-roaming-calls) its 10p/min to send a call from my UK number to the US local SIM card and 12p/min to call back to the UK (plus the local SIM charges for receiving calls) - total cost per minute is about 25p - and I keep my UK number

redux

I agree with the above post that a local SIM card is the only cheap option, as even global roaming SIMs don't have good tariffs there.

You can find info on networks and tariffs at
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

Note that the different charging system means that incoming calls are also charged, which means using a callback service is not worthwhile

There are reputed to be plenty of T-mobile and Cingular SIMs on eBay, or I'd be interested in Tuyo, with only a couple of cents extra for international calls, and the possibility to also use the balance as a calling card from landlines.

But there is much cheaper forwarding available than 10p a minute. With a variety of VoIP providers, it's possible to forward calls at rates around a penny or two, or even 0 from some Betamax brands.

If you decide that unlocking that phone is too expensive and look for a cheap alternative, note that they use different frequency bands there 850 and 1900 MHz, so you'd either need to take another tri- or quadband phone, or get a cheap dualband one when you arrive. Or they have CDMA (a different digital system) phones as well, not compatible with ours.

There are previous threads about this that you can find with the Search function

dc

All my o2 contract phones have been unlocked, unless the N95 is different, try some other firms sim in it.

In US incoming calls are charged for because moblies and land lines use the same numbering system/area code.

To differentiate so the caller does not have to pay for unknowingly calling a mobile the mobile user is charged the extra cost involved.

Much better system than number mad UK, imho.

Local sims recommended, T mobile has good coverage, beware some companies charge by minute, so a one second broken call will attract cost of one minute.

QQuaver

If it is really short trip, then T-mobile UK (PAYG) at 55p/min is not bad.

If you get free sim: http://www.t-mobilesimgiveaway.co.uk/?WT.mc_id=ON-TM-W-Home

And add some credit. Any left over can be used as MobileTV (£3.50 for 31 days:cool: )http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/mobile-tv-video-services/mobile-tv/?ref=newhome_mtv_title