<p>Does anyone have any recommendations on how to best go about getting a cell phone that will work well in Europe? </p>
<p>I am a Verizon Wireless customer. Does anyone know if Verizon’s coverage works well in Europe ( Germany, in particular)?</p>
<p>Glad you asked this question Rod! Can you take your own basic U.S. cellphone to Europe? </p>
<p>I have heard of students who buy a cellphone once in Europe that has a preloaded amount of set minutes. If they haven’t used all the minutes before coming back to the U.S., they pass the phone on to someone else from the U.S. going over.</p>
<p>My sons had great coverage with AT&T in France & Spain, but you need to call your Verizon people and ask about this. I know that we had to add International calling (5.99 per month on each phone to make the calls come down from .99 to maybe .29 per min). At that time they weren’t doing all this text message stuff & on another thread someone said you have to put an additional package to cover costs that aren’t just related to making calls so please check on that also. Make sure you get the name of the person you talk to & the date & time you placed the call. This will certainly help if there are problems later.</p>
<p>My son will be going to Germany this summer for a month and then will be studying in England 09/10. He has talked to others who did this & they said that it is better to get a phone there with pre-loaded minutes. After seeing all the horror stories about $900 phone bills (for one month) I think this is definately the way to go.</p>
<p>Good luck & have a great time in Germany!</p>
<p>If you have an unlocked cell phone that uses a SIM card you can switch out the SIM card to get a local phone number that works in Germany. If you go to the discussion forum at Fodors website for Europe, there are a lot of posts about this. I’ve also heard of several people who have used this company with good results: [Low-cost</a> Europe cell phones and European SIM cards](<a href=“http://www.callineurope.com/cgi-bin/cie.cgi?p=index.html]Low-cost”>http://www.callineurope.com/cgi-bin/cie.cgi?p=index.html)</p>
<p>I’m a Verizon customer and it is not possible to use your cell phone anywhere in Europe. Depending on where you are going in Europe, you can either buy or rent a cheap one when you get there.
I recently came back from Ireland and rented a phone from Rentaphone Ireland.I found their company on a website called [DoChara</a>, Tips and Advice for Visitors to Ireland](<a href=“http://www.dochara.com%5DDoChara”>http://www.dochara.com)
3 years ago in Italy I rented a cell phone from a local tour company, [url=<a href=“http://www.contextravel.com%5Dcontextravel.com%5B/url”>http://www.contextravel.com]contextravel.com[/url</a>] as we were going to be in Rome and did a med cruise so the phone worked in all of the countries we visited.
Most rental companies make it very easy to return the phone as they provide you with a prepaid mailing envelope. In Ireland, I picked it up at the airport, in Rome, they delivered it to our hotel!
Bon voyage</p>
<p>I strongly recommend buying an inexpensive GSM unlocked tri-band or quad-band cell phone either on ebay or from a company such as the one I posted above (which has one for $19) and then getting a local SIM card over renting a phone. You can compare the cost, but when I have in the past it was significantly cheaper to go this route. You can always sell the phone on ebay when you’re finished with it.</p>
<p>You will need an unlocked quad-band phone (tri-band may also work in some countries). Then you need to buy a sim card for that country. A lot of pay-as-you-go/prepaid services out there. If you are going to be there for a while, it will pay for itself.</p>
<p>If you are going to only be there for a week, and only need it for emergencies, then a locked quad-band phone will work. Then you need to subscribe for international roaming (not to be confused with placing calls from the USA to international numbers). Expensive calls ($1/min is not unusual), but then you don’t have to put $20 USD on the pre-paid card.</p>
<p>We used Range Roamers when DS went to London, Paris and Japan last year. We rented a phone that worked on all three countries. He used it for two months. The rates were reasonable, we loved that we could call him just like we were making a local call (they assign the phone a US 800 number). We could monitor and add minutes so we didn’t overbuy time. It worked really well.</p>
<p>Verizon phones don’t generally work in Europe because they use a different system. However, they have a few phones (very few) that are capable of both the system they use and the GSM system used in Europe. I think they also have a plan whereby you can contact them and request a phone to use in Europe for a limited time.</p>
<p>AT&T and T-Mobile phones will work in Europe as long as it includes the bands used in Europe and most if not all do. If you had one of these you just need to check with AT&T and make sure it’s enabled to roam internationally. This is a no cost setting they can make over the phone or maybe online. If it’s enabled, you can just take the phone there and use it just like you do here. This is convenient because people just use your normal number. However, especially if you get a lot of calls, the cost per minute is more expensive - around $1 per minute ao you have to be careful about calls. You also want to be careful about data plans since that can rack up charges. </p>
<p>Another option is to take your compatible phone over there and purchase a local SIM card with prepaid minutes to pop into the phone which will give you a local number and less expensive calls.</p>
<p>The other option is to just get a phone over there with prepaid minutes.</p>
<p>If they have a laptop with them and connectivity, like on a campus or hotel, they can use Skype, Windows Live Messenger, or some other app to do an internet based call for free. They could use this to supplement the cell phone.</p>
<p>The last time I went to Europe and the time my D went to Europe on her own we just used our existing AT&T phones and went with no changes. We were careful on their usage so it wasn’t expensive. We used them primarily just for ‘check-in’ purposes (i.e. “I’m here at Heathrow”, “I did this today”, “I’m here in … now”, etc.). A lot can be said in about $5 worth of a 5 minute call.</p>
<p>Ok, I am trying to digest this. My daughter is going to France for the month of May. She has an AT&T blackberry curve (we have a shared family plan) and NO INTERNET (pay per use only) but unlimited text messages. What do we do now? Do we add the international plan for the month of May? Do we have to add international texting or is there such a thing?</p>
<p>D is currently on her “Amazing Race” semester abroad. We sent her with an unlocked cell phone and she buys a SIM card for each country she’s in. She can text us, and we we can then call her via Skype on our computer for very little $$$. It has worked out really well. I can definitely tell you where NOT to buy an unlocked cell phone: [Unlocked</a> Cell Phones & Cell Phone Accessories - Cellular Blowout](<a href=“http://www.cellular-blowout.com/]Unlocked”>http://www.cellular-blowout.com/) H ordered one from there, paid for express shipping, etc. It didn’t come when promised, and H couldn’t get any response to emails asking ???s. Finally got terse email saying it was “backordered” until some unknown date. We cancelled the order and have not heard another word since. We disputed the credit card charge, received the credit from Visa, and washed our hands of the whole thing. Oh, and we also found another phone to send w/ D.</p>
<p>What is unlocked vs. locked??</p>
<p>Thank you all for sharing your knowledge regarding cell phones! There is always so much to learn and CC is definitely the place to go for answers!! </p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, you suggested buying a local SIM card. What is that? Will it fit into any compatible phone? If I were to buy such a “compatible” phone, what features should i be looking for? I’ve heard terms like GSM or broadband, but have no idea what they are exactly. I intend to go visit a Verizon store in the next few days, but I figure I could do some “homework” here on CC first so that I would be a better informed consumer. Thanks again to everyone for all your wonderful insights!!</p>
<p>Call Verizon and ask about their Global Phone – worked like a charm when my daughter was in Europe.</p>
<p>It was not very expensive and used the same phone number as in the US so my speed dial even still worked!!</p>
<p>This will explain it for you – [What</a> are Unlocked Cell Phones?](<a href=“What are Unlocked Cell Phones? (with pictures)”>What are Unlocked Cell Phones? (with pictures))
Note that not all US carriers use the type of phones that work in Europe (on a GSM system and that take SIM cards). Verizon uses a different system, so using your Verizon phone abroad won’t work this way and will be much more expensive.</p>
<p>seiclan:</p>
<p>Since she has an AT&T Blackberry, it’ll work in Europe. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Check with AT&T to see if her line is enabled for calling in an international location. If it isn’t, they can do it while on the phone and it should be no cost.</p></li>
<li><p>The text messages will cost and if she’s like many, she has a zillion of them. Check with AT&T about putting a block on the text messages while she’s there. If she actually has very few text messages you probably don’t need to worry about it. They’re something like .40 each but check on this figure.</p></li>
<li><p>Normally our cell phones are ‘locked’ meaning they’re limited to using a SIM from only that carrier - like AT&T. An ‘unlocked’ phone will allow any SIM to be placed in it so the phone can be used on any carrier’s compatible (like GSM for a GSM phone) network. If you contact AT&T, especially if she’s had the phone for more than 6 months or so, they’ll usually go ahead and unlock it but there might be a $30 or thereabouts fee.</p></li>
<li><p>If the phone is ‘unlocked’ then she can consider buying a SIM with prepaid minutes once she’s in Europe. This will make the cost per minute for the calls much less. This SIM card will have a local (European) phone number and one can usually top off minutes from a CC.</p></li>
<li><p>If you don’t want to bother with the prepaid SIM in Europe, just be aware of what the phone calls will cost - somehwere around $1 per minute but check on this figure.</p></li>
<li><p>Another option is to sign up for AT&T’s ‘international plan’ (not to be confused with making the phone work in an international location as I indicated above). This is service with an added monthly cost that can reduce the cost of the phone calls while there. You’ll want to check on the break even point depending on how many minutes of calls you anticipate her making.</p></li>
<li><p>If she’ll have a laptop and network access, use Skype, Windows Live Messenger (both free) or an equivalent to make longer calls. If she has a webcam you can even do a video call for free. She could point it outside and show you what it looks like!</p></li>
</ul>
<p>seiclan:</p>
<p>I have never had any luck in getting ATT to unlock my phones, but you can buy an unlock code on Ebay for under $5 (I paid $1 a couple of weeks ago). They send you the code right away and I have done this 4 times, so I can vouch that it works and is easy. Then you can buy a country specific sim card after shopping on the internet or wait until you get to the country and buy one at just about any corner. The cards are prepaid and are easy to top up and calls to the US are usually cheap. Receiving calls in Europe is usually free. It’s more expensive to get a sim card ahead of time because you have to pay the middleman, but you will have a number before leaving. We leave for Spain tomorrow and it will be the 4th time we have done exactly this. We just pop in the new sim card upon arrival and we have a local number and are ready to go. Good luck.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago we looked into getting a prepaid international cell phone through AAA. At the time, you could get it for a certain number of minutes prepaid…and pick it up here. Do they still do that?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here’s a link:</p>
<p>[Global</a> Phone](<a href=“http://b2b.vzw.com/international/Global_Phone/plans_coverage.html]Global”>http://b2b.vzw.com/international/Global_Phone/plans_coverage.html)</p>
<p>Fwiw, not very expensive must be a relative term. In general terms, trying to use a US based service abroad IS very expensive. Verizon’s Global Phone will be upwards of 1.00 per minute. The other rental service in partnership with Vodaphone is advertised at about 38 cents per minute PLUS a rental fee that is at a minimum $120 per month. Text messages at 65 cents will kill most students, except the most parsimonious.</p>
<p>Taking a phone such as the I-Phone or any other ATT type might amount to economical suicide if voicemails and text messages are forwarded from the United States. </p>
<p>All in all, it is worth to check the NON-US versions, and using a combination of local SiM cards (very convenient when abroad as opposed to have a US number,) using cheap prepaid calling cards, and any of the very efficient VOIP services such as Skype. </p>
<p>Being lazy about searching the options or naively believing the US is nothing else than the absolute WORST cellular service in the world is a costly mistake.</p>
<p>PS Search the many threads about this on CC.</p>
<p>I spoke with AT&T rep. yesterday. We can get her the AT/T world connect plan for only 3.99$/month (we only need one month). This plan brings the calling cost down to $0.22 per minute. Also we can add a international text message package for $9.99/month that gives her 100 text messages then 20 cents a text after she runs over (much better than the normal 50 cent/text international fee). This prob. works the best I think.</p>