How do US based cell phones work in Europe? (Solved and a basic answer given)

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Joey D

Joey D

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I'm going to Europe this summer for 8 weeks, it's on a study aboard program with Oxford University. I want to take my cell phone and use it over there so I can at least get a hold of my family as well as get a hold of people that I'm traveling with. I have Sprint/Nextel and a Motorola i850 phone, which I'm told does not work in Europe because it is not a GSM or quad-band phone.

So can someone explain to me what GSM and quad-band are? I looked on the Sprint website and couldn't figure out what on earth they were talking about. Also can someone tell me what phones will work in Europe if not my phone? I went to a Sprint store and they told me they didn't know and I had to call '611' the support line for Sprint. Well I got some guy that knew 3 words of English and I couldn't tell what he was telling me I needed. The one phone he did tell is 500 bucks and looks like a Blackberry. I do not need that, heck I don't need really anything special.
 
GSM stands for Global System for Mobile communication and it is a digital mobile telephone system that is the standard used in Europe. GSM uses a variation of TDMA and is the most widely used of the three digital wireless telephone technologies (the other being CDMA). GSM digitizes and compresses data, then sends it down a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its own time slot. It operates at either the 900 mhz or 1800 mhz frequency band.

Phone banding relates to what frequencies your phone can pick up on. A single band phone will only operate on one frequency. Over here a dual band phone operates on the 900mhz and 1800mhz frequesncies. A quad band phone is capable of operating on 4 frequencies 850 mhz, 900 mhz, 1800 mhz and 1900 mhz. The 900mhz and 1800mhx frequencies are European while the 850mhz and 1900mhz frequencies are American.

You don't need a special phone, just one that will work on GSM and on thoes two frequencies. Hell while your over here you could buy a bottom of the line pay as you go phone and simcard for next to nothing in mobile terms, something like this...
http://www.phones4u.co.uk/shop/shop_payg_details.asp?ItemKey=164685&MPItemKey=160840 £15 which is about $30
http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/show/handset/alcatel_ot-e801/detail/pay_as_you_go £20 which is about $40

Heres a list of pay as you go phones under £50 (theres a few for £20 or less), it's near enough $2 ($1.97) to the pound at the moment so it's not hard to convert the prices.
http://www.phones4u.co.uk/search/results_adv.asp?ad=15
 
Thanks for the information, I pretty much just did major rounds with the idiots at Sprint and told them to place their contract in an area it is not supposed to be. I guess the only phones they offer in GMS are a $450 i930 and $500+ Blackberry. So I effectively have to pay a $100 termination fee and I'm done with those people.

Ok scratch T-Mobile, Cingular has a better international calling deal, it's 6 cents a minute.
 
I talked with the Verizon people when I wanted to take my phone to France last summer and I believe that I would have had to pay a fixed rate per day and a high rate per minute. I think it was like $3 per day and over $1 per minute of calling. That would be for my phone and other phones might not be the same way. I'm not really liking Verizon either now, maybe Cingular is nicer.
 
Cingular is $3.99 a month and 6 cents per minute to a land line and 25 cents per minute to a cell line anywhere in the world.
 
philly cheese
I talked with the Verizon people when I wanted to take my phone to France last summer and I believe that I would have had to pay a fixed rate per day and a high rate per minute. I think it was like $3 per day and over $1 per minute of calling. That would be for my phone and other phones might not be the same way. I'm not really liking Verizon either now, maybe Cingular is nicer.
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$3 a day, 10 days and you could have bought a pay as you go phone over here and had much, much cheaper calls. Thats robbery.
 
I think I lied. I know prices range from $1.29 to $4.99 per minute, depending on the country. Somehow, I remembr there being a charge for the time you spend away, but I can't seem to recall what it was now.
 
Just buy a GSM phone... heck... get a used Sony Ericcson K-series... terrific photos, great MP3, upgradeable memory.
 
After looking around at all the American companies, AT&T/Cingular has the best international service. For $3.99 a month you can make international phone calls for $.06 to land lines and $.25 to cell lines. This is part of their world connect feature. They also have a large selection of GSM phones including the Razr and other "trendy" phones.

If you are an American looking to travel around this seems to be the best deal out there.
 
Sureshot
ET is how they work in Europe, or was it BT? [/shrugs]
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BT is the biggest landline network in Britain, though not all landlines run through BT (Kingston has thier own network and cable companies tend to as well). It has nothing to do with this discussion though. There's several mobile networks over here, all he needs is a GSM phone.
 

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