Calling While On Holiday

[ajbrun]

I'm going on holiday to America with the family soon, and I can see us splitting up now and then while we're there, so we'd want to call each other's phones occasionally without spending a fortune doing it.

I'm guessing that doing this, normally the call will have to bounce from the US to the UK, then back to the US again to the recipient, which will probably cost a bit. (Please tell me if I'm wrong and the call stays in the US and costs the same as calling in the UK since that's where both the sender and receiver phones are located)

I don't know much about this kind of stuff, but I'm guessing the best thing to do would be to get a sim card for each of the phones that would use one of the American phone networks. I had a little read up on this, but I'm not convinced this would work. Does anyone have any input?

There are 5 phones of a variety of ages (pre-bluetooth to modern), and most are on O2 pay as you go.

[TAKTAK]

America uses a different Cell network so i don't think you could just use a different SIM.
(dependant on the phone that you have)

I could be wrong though

edit: gonzo's post below clarifys what i meant by some phones: The 'some phones' i meant are ones that support GSM 1900 and 850

[GoNz0]

http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/USA-Americ...:-1:LISTINGS:2

[ajbrun]

http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/USA-Americ...:-1:LISTINGS:2

That was actually one of the pages I read, but other pages seem to suggest that the phone itself needs to be registered to a network as well as the sim card (or is that just phone locking like we have here in the UK?).

My other issue is that ebay is telling me that each sim is going to cost about £20, which will amount to a small fortune for all the phones. In the bargain section, I'm sure there's been many threads just giving away UK sims. Is there a similar way to get free/cheap US sims?

[GoNz0]

us is still very expensive for mobile networks, sms is always an option to keep costs down tho

also you need at least tri band phones afaik if not quad band to hook up to there networks, and yeh it has to be unlocked to use a us sim.

[TAKTAK]

GSM-900 and GSM-1800 are used in most parts of the world

GSM-850 and GSM-1900 are used in the United States, Canada, and many other countries in the Americas.

Tri band phones support GSM-1900 so they should work if they are unlocked

edit: Today, most telephones support multiple bands as used in different countries. These are typically referred to as multi-band phones. Dual-band phones can cover GSM networks in pairs such as 900 and 1800 MHz frequencies (Europe, Asia, Australia and Brazil) or 850 and 1900 (North America and Brazil). European tri-band phones typically cover the 900, 1800 and 1900 bands giving good coverage in Europe and allowing limited use in North America, while North American tri-band phones utilize 850, 1800 and 1900 for wide-spread North American service but limited world-wide use. A new addition has been the quad-band phone, supporting all four major GSM bands, allowing for global use.

[ajbrun]

us is still very expensive for mobile networks, sms is always an option to keep costs down tho

Sorry to keep throwing a load of questions, but I have another.

My first post kind of asked how a call to a UK mobile from a UK mobile with both of them located in the US would work. Does anyone have an answer?

The reason I ask is that it's probably fairly simple to find the cost of a call from UK to US, but I don't think I've seen the price of one as described above. Does it cost extra because the call (I assume) needs to go from my phone in the US to O2 in the UK and back again to the recipient in the US? Also, is the recipient still charged the 120p/min fee?

I was looking at prices, and I did notice that the minimum charge was for 1 minute, which is quote annoying at 137p/min.

[TAKTAK]

there are added fees as your network that you are registered to 'roams' on another network providers backbone to give you the signal...

but just dialing the mobile number in america should work, you don't need a country code or anything as far as i know

[Jay]

I know that T-Mobile is a network out there... but if its the same as here I don't know.

[TAKTAK]

I know that T-Mobile is a network out there... but if its the same as here I don't know.

no, it's not the same network as here (just the same company), as they use GSM 1900 & 850 in the states whereas in the UK (and most of the world) they use GSM 900 & 1800

the states is actually quite far behind in it's acceptance of mobular networks.

but things are starting to change as instead of taking the intermediate step they are jumping straight to HSDPA. (mainly T-Mobile pushing things along) but it's still got a very low uptake.

[Funkstar]

The reason I ask is that it's probably fairly simple to find the cost of a call from UK to US, but I don't think I've seen the price of one as described above. Does it cost extra because the call (I assume) needs to go from my phone in the US to O2 in the UK and back again to the recipient in the US? Also, is the recipient still charged the 120p/min fee?

I was looking at prices, and I did notice that the minimum charge was for 1 minute, which is quote annoying at 137p/min.

When calling a UK phone while roaming from another UK phone, you are both charged the appropriate part of the roaming charges. You are charged the outgoing portion as you are making a roaming call, the other party is charges the incoming portion for recieving a roaming call. So you can easily be charged a collective £2.50/min.

Unfortunitely the US doesn't really have decent PAYG as far as I know (unless this has changed). It certainally isn't as flexible as Europe (and indeed a lot of the rest of the world). I know someone with one phone and UK, Norwegian, Finish, Polish and Spanish PAYG sims.