<p>Has anyone had the experience of changing a sim card on a Cingular Wireless phone for travel abroad, and if so, I was wondering if perhaps it might be better to buy a cheap phone with a calling card - although I thought that sending a cell as a back-up might not be a bad idea (as long as it doesn’t get lost or stolen, that is - since we don’t have insurance on the phone). I already had a long discussion with Cingular customer service, and it sounds like it’s easy to do, but I don’t want to risk the phone getting ruined on account of it. I guess I’m a little skeptical as to if it will even work in a foreign country. Cingular said it should - but they have to unlock it first.</p>
<p>It may depend on what country you plan to use the phone in. I just got back from Italy last week. I had bought a phone and sim-card on the internet
with the assurance that it would work as soon as I landed and entered a few
phone codes. Not true. I needed to go to a TIM office and have them start
the service. I discovered at the office that it would have been much cheaper to buy a phone and phone minutes there. I think the phones went for around
35/40 Euros(?)</p>
<p>D is doing study abroad in Berlin and the advice from the supervising faculty member was to buy the phone and minutes there. I don’t know any details, but they load minutes to pay for outgoing calls and text messages, but incoming calls are free. I had spoken to Cingular about our phones and did travel with my phone when I accompanied her on travels prior to her program. It said it had service, but I never used it - I communicated with the home crowd via e-mail and just kept the phone with me in case of emergency.</p>
<p>My kids have both been abroad with their Cingular phones as well as several others I know. All you need to do is get your current phone UNLOCKED or purchase an unlocked phone. A good place to buy an unlocked phone is on ebay. You can call Cingular’s customer service and request an unlock code for your phone; some phones can not be unlocked with a code and must be unlocked by a person, but I know for a fact that Motorola phones have an unlock code that Cingular can give you. Most larger cities have a storefront that has people that unlock your phone on the spot. I know my sister paid $30 to have her phone unlocked, the same phone I got a free unlocked code from Cingular!!</p>
<p>Once you have an unlocked phone, you child can just buy a sim card for the country she is in and insert it into her phone. The sim cards are much cheaper in Europe and all incoming calls are free. The sim card can be reloaded with minutes as needed. The sim card will come with a phone number, so your child will not be using her current Cingular phone number.</p>
<p>You can also buy the sim card and/or a phone online before you leave the states. One company that comes recommended is <a href=“http://www.telestial.com/[/url]”>http://www.telestial.com/</a> . I believe Rick Steves likes this company, but I have found cheaper searching google. There are also international calling cards at Costo and other warehouse clubs if you don’t want to bother with getting an unlocked phone and sim card.</p>
<p>Thank you both for your helpful info regarding the sim card/buying a phone. If D takes her cell just for an emercency, then would her telephone # stay the same, or when she gets the French sim card, would the # be different. I think that I need to have another conversation with Cingular just to sort out the different possibilities. She’ll probably end up buying a phone over there as well, since my S will also be there, and he’s getting a phone. They might travel to other countries, so I would want them to be able to have a phone in each country - now this sounds like a tall order! I’m assuming that my S will know what to do, since he has travelled abroad extensively before, and bought a phone to use while he was there.</p>
<p>Thank you, Snowball - I will look into your recommendations as well. Would she need a different sim card for each country that she’s travelling to, or just the one for France?</p>
<p>If the phone is unlocked it will work in all countries as long as it is a quad band phone. Different countries operate on a different band, but most of the newer phones are quad band. </p>
<p>The sim card phone number goes only with that sim card and each country will need it’s own sim card. Check with the above site; I believe the information you need will be there.</p>
<p>You can also use your current Cingular phone and just enable international calling. Cingular will tell you how much incoming and outgoing calls will cost as well as text messages. I don’t like my kids traveling with their home Cingular phone numbers as their friends will send hundreds of text messages that will cost a fortune! At home they have plans that cover the texting, but abroad texting is charges by the message.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, snowball. That’s a good point with regard to the text messaging. I will check the above website to get more info.</p>
<p>My 18 year old son is currently in Ireland with two friends. I have Cingular service and recently bought a new phone (LG). Cingular sent me a text message shortly after it was activated to remind me that that model could be used overseas and gave me a link on their website. I started with the website and then spoke with someone in customer service–it was all pretty simple to arrange. The rep was very helpful and gave me instructions about how to call the US and how to call numbers within Ireland, which I typed out and taped on the back of the phone. They have been there a little over a week and one of the kids has used the phone each day to check in (then that mom calls other 2 
) without even being asked, which is nice. I think if they had to use public phones and phone cards we’d have gotten fewer calls. Cost is quite reasonable—I opted for a “package” that drops the per minute price to 99 cents (I think it was about $1.29 without it). </p>
<p>The rep activated the service while I was speaking with her—I think I was then instructed to turn the phone off and back on. Did not have to do anything with the sim card. We have called them a couple of times by just dialing my regular phone number.</p>
<p>Janejersey, that’s interesting. We have the same or a similar model- the LG - in this case, the 400 and 500 (S has this model). It wasn’t necessary to change the sim card, and you were able to dial your regular phone # - now I’m totally confused - I’ll call Cingular and ask about this possibility. That’s great, though, but maybe in France it’s a different situation - I don’t know. I’ll report back after I talk to Cingular.</p>
<p>D went to France over spring break and we bought her a 4 band, unlocked Unicel cell phone before she left. We were told most cell phones in the US have only 2 bands; which are not the same bands used in Europe. When she arrived at the airport in France she purchased a new sim card and the phone worked well.</p>
<p>Hi nyumom</p>
<p>My son just got home from his trip. I asked if he had to get another sim card or do anything else with the phone when they got to Ireland—he says no, it worked right away. Maybe it varies by country? I had told the rep that he wasn’t going anywhere but Ireland so she didn’t comment about different requirements, if any, for other countries.</p>
<p>BTW, it’s an LG CU400</p>
<p>Also–I forgot until I saw the phone again and glanced at what I taped on it: the rep had given me 2 troubleshooting phone numbers, one to call in the US and the other to call from overseas.</p>
<p>nyumom- You can use your current phone if it has the correct band and your current Cingular sim card; it is just usually much cheaper to use a sim card from the country you are in. I did forget to mention that Cingular has an international plan that you can use; I think it was like $3.99 a month and this would lower the price of each international call. If you do this for the traveling child, you might want to consider also adding the plan to your own cell phone so that your calls will also cost less.</p>
<p>Both the LG 400 and 500 are quad band phone so all you will need to do is get them unlock so that they will accept any sim cards. If the phone will not be use much, you might just want to go with the international plan with cingular just to save trouble.</p>
<p>Check here to get more information:
<a href=“http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/before-travel.jsp[/url]”>http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/before-travel.jsp</a></p>
<p>We took our Cingular phones to London last Fall. Cingular’s service is expensive and at the time would not unlock our phones. I purchased an unlocking service on Ebay and UK sim cards also on Ebay. The cards were really cheap, came with minutes, and we had our phone numbers before we left. They came with “top up” cards so that you could purchase more minutes almost anywhere. When we got to London, we just popped in the new cards, made a phone call to activate and set up voice mail, and we were good to go. The calls, even back home, were cheap, cheap, cheap. We started out with 5 pounds of credit and came home with more than 4 pounds left. They were Virgin cards. See what you can find on Ebay searching with “international sim card”. The inventory varies. It was nice having our familiar phones. Check your charger and make sure that it will handle 220V. Most will, but if not, again go to Ebay.</p>
<p>Also, one thing that makes a foreign sim card so much cheaper is that usually incoming calls and texts are free.</p>
<p>Thanks, preironic! Great advice - although it may be a little too late for me as S leaves tomorrow evening for a 2 month stay in London.</p>
<p>I think I’ll just have him buy one over there.</p>
<p>TutuTaxi,
My D just informed me that her roommate in Paris already has a phone that was already set with a Paris phone # - since she already left to go abroad, my D can’t call and ask where she got the phone and #- maybe it was from one of her previous travel abroad visits, but I thought that my D said that she previously visited other countries (not necessarily France). Do you know how/where your D purchased the Unicel unlocked cell phone? Maybe it would be possible to buy one here and then just buy the sim card in Paris. I’m guessing that it wouldn’t be possible to also buy the French sim card here in the states before she leaves, even though it sounds like D’s roommate already had one before she left for her trip.
preironic,
Thanks for the info. including the charger - I will be sure to check on that.</p>
<p>snowball and janejersey,
Thanks for the link to the AT&T website. We also have the LG CU400, and I will look into the international rate plans. D did ask me if it was possible for her to buy an unlocked phone here and bring it with her. I would still have her bring her own phone as well.</p>
<p>Last year S backpacked in Europe – 2 days in a city, 4-5 days in a country.
We all have Cingular phones and planned to speak only 1-2 times a week and for a few minutes. However, he was hospitalized so we ended up talking and texting way more frequently – very $$$$$$$.</p>
<p>This year when we were in London we bought a local phone there and a phone card. It worked well and was cheap.</p>
<p>Son is in China for a year. He uses his Cingular phone for occasional texting but has a Chinese cell. We can text his Cingular phone but not his Chinese cell. We call his Chinese cell using a long distance phone card. So far it is working well. </p>
<p>Another kid is in Nepal and China for 5 weeks only. He said local Nepali phone is expensive so we changed his texting plan. We text his Cingular phone for nothing; his texts to us are 50 cents each (we told him NOT to text friends).
We only text 1-2 times a week. He had three tight flights over to Asia so I am glad we could text to find out what was doing.</p>
<p>nyumom-How long will your daughter be in France? If it is more than a few weeks, I would think buying an unlocked phone would be the way to go. You can either unlock her currennt phone, buy and unlocked phone from telestial or from ebay along with a sim card. If you get the phone and sim card ahead of time, you will have her number before she goes. If you check telestial’s site you will be able to see the cost for a phone, a sim, or both together. There are many other site to buy phone and/or sim cards on the internet; it is so easy to do this before she goes. </p>
<p>I would highly recommend getting her phone unlock and maybe adding the international plan, plus a sim card for France. This way she will still have her US number to use if she has a layover or while still at a US airport, but can switch the sim to the one from France will there. It is simple to pop one sim out and replace it with another. My kids do so when they travel; they prefer to have their own phone with them while traveling.</p>
<p>I’m glad that your S who backpacked in Europe is ok, and that the cell phone service worked out for both of your kids. I don’t even know how to text - I guess I’ll have to learn. H and I are not that savvy when it comes to using the cell.</p>