 Poster: A snowHead
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so, there are a bunch of us off to Utah. my PAYG mobile costs me a fortune if I make or receives calls and texts abroad, so we are thinking of picking up some PAYG sim cards on arrival in SLC and sticking them in cheap phones that we have lying around. Anyone know if this is possible / have any recommendations?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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nbt, Last time over there I just went into a T-mobile branch and bought a cheap PAYG phone. From memory it was around 30 bucks including minutes. Never sure if US sim is always going to work in a UK mobile so decided this was easiest.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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nbt, wot Bode Swiller says, but for longer trips try http://www.oneroam.co.uk/ I'm trying to transfer my existing mob no. to Skype so I can keep a UK contact no.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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nbt, not done that - but you need to be careful. In JH t-mobile and orange and O2 SIMs work in town - but not at the hill. And I believe some US networks and phones do not use SIM technology. Network coverage seems patchier than Europe too in my very limited experience. Have you looked at sim4travel?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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nbt, I've used US t-mobile SIM in an old UK phone in Colorado (CO) & on the whole it worked fine, but you need to be aware of the following...
In CO reception can be a little patchy on the back of some mountains & the odd valley. But hey, you're in the mountains with thousands of miles of wilderness beyond you - what do you expect?
See stoatsbrother's note about Jackson, too. phone company websites can give you coverage maps.
Many of the US networks aren't GSM and those that are may have less extensive coverage that the "home grown" ones.
GSM works on a different system there too so your handset needs to be at least tri-band (900, 1800 & 1900): in the US, GSM is 1900.
Fair point about the UK handsets too. In my experience O2 & vodafone don't lock them, but orange do.
In the US the charging regime is different. You pay for making and recieving both calls and texts (even from US phones). Not as dear as roaming, but your credit drops faster than you think.
Their dialling codes are also location based and might affect call charges if you buy and use in different states so ask about this if purchasing at a layover airport on the way out.
Once you have the sim (which I bought in a t-mobile shop in Denver) you can get top-up vouchers in 7-Eleven, Wal-Mart, target etc. They're just like here.
All that said; I wouldn't buy them just to keep in touch on the hill - for my money they're not reliable enough for emergencies.
You might want to consider buying a set of walkie talkies. Again, the ones you buy here are on a different set of frequencies to US and they are illegal, but Wal-Mart etc or airport shops can provide you with low-cost legal varieties for ~£20. If you choose to risk it with UK walkies (as little as £10 in Tesco), bear in mind you may have to explain yourself to those nice men from Homeland Security.
Hope that helps. Happy to explain further if required.
I'll be buying another PAYG t-mobile SIM when I'm out there in March.
Cheers,
CW 
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nbtLike cardweg said, make sure that if you get a phone it's a GSM/UMTS one and not one of the US home grown AMPS/TDMA/CDMA/CDMA2000 varieties, cos those will not work in Europe or (just about) anywhere else! Ok, CDMA does work in Korea but not many other places!
Also make sure it does the European 900/1800 bands as well as the US 850/1900 bands, cos otherwise it won't work in Europe either.
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nbt, not massively useful as i cant remember the name but there is a company that can set up text groups for you phone, we've used it before but as i didnt set it up i'm not sure how it was done but basically we could text everyone in the group for 15p each text to the group as a whole not each individual, we got loads of free texts when we signed up as well so we didnt pay for many. We were just advised to divert voice calls to voicemail so we could have our phones switched on all the time and didnt want to get charged for incoming calls and disable the voicemail notifications so again we didnt get unnecessary charges. I guess it depends what you want the phone for but if its just for keeping in touch with the rest of your group whilst your there this option might be ok for you.
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