Orange in the USA?

[petkow]

I take it the UK Orange card he had was prepaid. His description of the event is pretty detailed. I wonder why he didn't post which destination he called or how much he was charged for the call?

It is all quite interesting though!

On another note, how does one get into that 'monitor mode' on the Nokia 6230i he is showing? (or for that matter on any phone?)

[andy]

Originally Posted by petkow

On another note, how does one get into that 'monitor mode' on the Nokia 6230i he is showing? (or for that matter on any phone?)

I've browsed this a bit, but not actually done anything

http://www.mwiacek.com/gsm/netmon/faq_net0.htm

[inquisitor]

The GSM1800 basestation in San Francisco is part of Orange's R&D centre, which they opened in 2005 (see: http://www.orangepartner.com/site/en...er_centres.jsp). The exact location (500 m away from the Hampton Inn) is:
Orange Labs
801 Gateway Blvd, Suite 500
South San Francisco,
CA 94080, USA

Btw in Germany, where we've only GSM900 and GSM1800, there's a GSM1900 basestation from Cingular at the USAF airbase in Ramstein.

[petkow]

Originally Posted by andy

I've browsed this a bit, but not actually done anything

http://www.mwiacek.com/gsm/netmon/faq_net0.htm

Thanks Andy... On second thoughts it may be wise for me to stay out of there. Knowing me, I will change some setting and kill a phone!

[andy]

Originally Posted by petkow

There are also of course those 'picocells' on passenger ferrys and cruise ships. On a crossing from France to UK I got some icelandic carrier! (can't remember who it was though I remember getting the Roaming SMS with "Welcome to Iceland" etc.)

Even across the Channel ?! Not Dover - Calais then. Which ferry company - one with longer Spanish routes as well?

It reminds me - the first time I ever used a mobile phone was 1989, borrowed from a friend, to the UK from the docks at Caen. Roaming hadn't been invented that I know of, and I'm not sure if UK and French analogue networks were compatible (or whether there even was a French one).

I've never checked up on this or whether the signal would have been across the sea. I didn't even think to ask J whether he'd used the phone in the previous 2 weeks; then it just seemed like something expensive I wouldn't contemplate for a few years (my brother-in-law used to work for Vodafone - near the beginning the merchant commission on a contract sale was £1400!)

Originally Posted by petkow

Thanks Andy... On second thoughts it may be wise for me to stay out of there. Knowing me, I will change some setting and kill a phone!

Likewise - that's why I saved it in a Favourites folder and forgot about it until you asked

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by andy

It reminds me - the first time I ever used a mobile phone was 1989, borrowed from a friend, to the UK from the docks at Caen.

In the days of big analog phones it was not uncommon to find people using cells as much as 90 to 100 miles from the tower. This required a high location, such as a hill or a tall building, and a very good antenna. But it was possible.

[petkow]

Originally Posted by andy

Even across the Channel ?! Not Dover - Calais then. Which ferry company - one with longer Spanish routes as well?

I was crossing from Roscoff to Plymoth (around 5hrs). You're right, on other days the same ship also did the much longer Santander to Plymouth. It was in June 2004 and as far as I remember the ship was the then brand new mv Pont-Aven from Britanny ferries.

A bit of googling on the matter has shown me that Brittany Ferries, Minoan Lines, Superfast Ferries and Discovery Cruise line all use SIMMIN (from Iceland Telecom) as their airtime provider, and Geolink OceanCell handles the sat uplink services. Apparantly everything is fairly pricy, but not as bad as it used to be. By the sound of it outgoing SMS are charged at around €1 and incoming and outgoing calls are all around the €0.80/min mark or standard 'old fashioned' roaming rates

Question begs to be asked, but for people who works on these ships (or who travel on them frequently) could they buy a prepaid Frelsi card from SIMMIN (http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/islanda/siminn.html) and get cheaper call rates? I doubt it!

[petkow]

Originally Posted by petkow

A bit of googling on the matter has shown me that Brittany Ferries, Minoan Lines, Superfast Ferries and Discovery Cruise line all use SIMMIN (from Iceland Telecom) as their airtime provider

Ah.. as an update to that (and apologies that this is going off topic), I have just read that as of the beginning of 2007, SIMMIN no longer provides airtime services for these ships:
http://www.siminn.co.uk/english/abou...e63/item31197/
From another ferry crossing on another route, I noticed an IOM provider which I wrote about here:
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/cell...59.html?t=2159

To get back on topic, does anyone else know of any other extra-territorial GSM providers?