<p>My family is really bad about our cell phone and internet usage. As a matter of fact, we are on vacation and 3 of the 4 of us brought our laptops with us! My daughter didn’t want to bring hers, so instead I can’t get her off of mine!!</p>
<p>We text each other as well as friends way too much. My husband has been know to go over his text messages and as the keeper of the phone bill, I have had to admonish him instead of the kids. It is hard to tell the kids not to use their phones so much when we are almost as bad.</p>
<p>snowball,
Now I feel badly that my posts are interfering with your vacation! My D will be in France for 6 weeks, but will probably be traveling to other countries - hopefully not too far. I didn’t know that we could order an unlocked phone and sim card online, but I’ll definitely check out the telestial website. She’ll probably also take her own phone, and maybe we can buy a sim card for that one and also get the unlock code from Cingular along with buying her another phone and sim card from telestial. That way she’ll be fully covered as far as phone usage is concerned. I like the idea of having back-ups. Also, my S will be there, and he’ll have a phone or two.</p>
<p>We purchased the Unicel phone here in the US, at a local cell phone store. The 4 band, unlocked phone was around $70. When D arrived in France she replaced the original sim card with the one she purchased at the airport.</p>
<p>I’ll check into the Unicel phone as well. I am reviewing the plans on the Telestial website, but I don’t know which one would be the best. If anyone has any suggestions/feedback, please let me know.</p>
<p>I just tried to view the Unicel website, but the city/state and zipcodes weren’t valid. Therefore, I wasn’t able to access any information with regard to their rate plans, etc.</p>
<p>We brought Ds Unicel phone at a local cell phone store. The idea was to purchase an unlocked, quad band phone for her to use only while in Europe. D already had a Sprint cell phone, so we were not looking for a long term plan. If I remember correctly the type of plans offered w/ the Unicel phone were based on the sim card you purchased for the cell phone. I think that is the whole idea w/ Unicel, We purchased the cheapest sim card they offered, knowing she would be buying a new sim card once she got to France.</p>
<p>Thanks again for everyone’s advice and input. Kids will be taking their own cells with the option to change sim cards, but what will most likely happen is that they will buy a cell overseas, so they can use their own phones to call home and also have the option of using the new phones to call locally and to other in Europe.</p>
<p>I didn’t want to wait until arrival in the UK to have the phone thing settled.</p>
<p>You can “top off” (add more) to your phone credit at machines available in many stores in the UK, but we wanted to start out having some credit already on the sim card, so we paid to have some added upfront. Incoming calls are free. Text messaging included.</p>
<p>Much of the business of adding credit, etc., involves them text messaging confirmations to you, you make note of various numbers they provide, etc. You can figure it out while it is happening.</p>
<p>The SIM CARD comes with its own UK phone number.</p>
<p>Skyhook,
I’m glad to hear that your phone for England worked. I called D who just arrived in Paris, and was able to reach her on her regular Cingular cell without changing the simcard. The ring sounded a little different, but other than that, she sounded like she was in the same room - much better reception than what we usually get here.</p>
<p>nyumom-did you find out from Cingular how much your calls would cost between Paris and the States? I could never let my kids travel out of the country with their home phone number as the bill would be sky high!! Between the texting the friends and calling to tell us what they were doing, the bill would be something I wouldn’t want to open!! </p>
<p>The problem is, you are not using your contracted minutes when international; they charge the international call independently as a certain dollar rate. If she isn’t going to use the phone except for emergencies or very short calls, then you will not have the huge bill my family would have. I guess we all just like to stay in touch!</p>
<p>There are numerous hidden amd very costly traps for anyone using his or her domestic phone abroad. Even when attempting to control the calls made and received by leaving the phone turned off, one could be hit with huge charges for the forwarding of voicemail. People have reported being billed hundreds of dollars, and even thousands of dollars when the voicemails hit their phone abroad. While this COULD be avoided by discussing the use of the phone abroad with a “competent” rep, and suspending the service of the mailbox while being abroad, it is so much easier to eliminate the risk by using a foreign SIM and a prepaid account. No surprises there; you’ll know when you run out of credits! </p>
<p>Why take the risk of trusting your domestic service providers that are notoriously dishonest and only too happy to mislead and hose their customers? When it comes to cellular service, the United States IS the Third World.</p>
<p>ATT charges for France (should be the same for incoming)
AT&T Standard International Roaming: $1.29
AT&T World Traveler: 99 cents</p>
<p>Add the taxes, and one can see that you won’t need many minutes to justify to purchase of a phone that accepts a foreign SIM card. Probably about 25 minutes!</p>
<p>xiggi-That was my concern for nyumom. I think it is so each to rack up the minutes without even trying. My son used his US phone one night to set his alarm while out of the country. He had several voice mails and a few text messages that came through when he turned the phone on. It wasn’t much money, but he didn’t need to hear them until he was back in the states. He was traveling with another unlocked phone that he and his sister were sharing so if they wanted to talk, they used that phone. They both traveled with their Cingular phones so that had them before leaving the states and on return.</p>
<p>I will never travel out of the states without buying a local sim card; they are so cheap, there is no reason to do otherwise.</p>
<p>My daughter that had several friends abroad this semester used skype to keep in touch; what a wonderful invention!!</p>
<p>We’re on all of the Cingular international plans, and D is planning on getting a phone while over there. I actually called her from a landline phone to check on her arrival, and to help orchestrate the meeting place with her brother who was trying to find her. He has a phone in France with a local #, so I was able to call him from my landline to let him know her location. I’m not too concerned about the charges - we’ve been Cingular customers since way back when they had another name, so we’ve been with them forever. I won’t tolerate any calls that might get out of hand and will not hesitate to call Cingular about it if anything like that should happen. I’ve been speaking with them quite a bit in the past few weeks, and I have names of employees who I’ve been consulting, so if there is any problem, trust me, I’ll be notifying them rather quickly.</p>
<p>I think that there might be an unlock code in place in case D needs to change the sim card, (I did put in the request to get the unlock code, and I think that it was text messaged to me, but we didn’t really get a chance to follow it up with a phone call to get the instructions for changing the sim card, and it seemed like it might be complicated), but it might be easier for her just to get a phone while over there, since she’ll be there for a good part of the summer.</p>
<p>If you received the unlock code, it is just a matter of entering the numbers into the phone and them insert the local sim card. I had my unlock directions with the code emailed so that I just had my son follow the directions. We also have been with Cingular (originally Bell South Mobility) forever; it has been 20 years this month! We were members of the president’s club which gave us out own customer service reps; that was back in the day when you really received customer service with a smile; I do miss our rep Hazel!</p>
<p>Based on what you and xiggi are saying, I think that I will call Cingular tomorrow and ask if the unlock code # and directions can be e-mailed - that’s a great idea! That way, D will have it in case she chooses to use it. Would she then be able to use the phone to call us at home, or would it be just for local calls over in France and/or other international countries?</p>
<p>The phone can be used to call anywhere just like her Cingular number can call any number. You will have a difference in price with calls to the US versus calls within France. For example with Telestial, all incoming calls are free to your daughter’s phone and calls she makes to the US are 84 cents a minute. Just remember that you will have international charges to the phone you call your daughter from, so an international calling card would be good to own.
<a href=“Telestial”>http://www.telestial.com/view_product.php?PRODUCT_ID=LSIM-FR01</a></p>
<p>Thanks snowball - I think that I finally understand the process now. We have an AT&T international plan with our landline phone, and that comes to $.11 a minute for calls to France, but the $.84 charge doesn’t seem too expensive considering that incoming calls would be free - I’m assuming those would be local calls for her - in France - it sounds good to me.</p>