For Americans Going To Europe Or Overseas

[snaimon]

Originally Posted by Effendi

1800 can suffice in large cities only on Wind, and anyway you'll probably have not much coverage inside buildings at low floors. With TIM and Vodafone I suspect you need 900 much more...

Since his current phone does not have 900, WIND better be a roaming partner for him. If not, he will have no coverage if what you say is true.

Am a bit astonished. Have 1800 coverage on my 2 German SIMs and that is quite good almost everywhere. Also, the National Op pages show that the biggies in IT have 1800 coverage as well as 900.

Stan

[jlbaer1]

If I am going to use my cell phone and just pay roaming while visiting my daughter in Italy, do I need to get my phone unlocked by TMob. I thought I only needed to get it unlocked if I was gonna buy an Italian sim card which Im not. Also, I think I might roll the dice and use my tri band and try to get by on the 1800 freq as I will be in urban areas such as Milan and Rome and otherwise with her so I can use her phone in a pinch.

I was looking at quad band phones thou on my Tmobile website and the Nokia 6086 and Nokia 6133 are somewhat intriguing to me. So, I might just go out and upgrade to one of those. I have all the Nokia accessories such as the car adapter and battery chargers (2) so I might as well stay withing Nokia.

I can upgrade for 49.00 and it only extends my contract 1 year and 2 months which I could care less about since I am happy with Tmob.

[snaimon]

Originally Posted by jlbaer1

If I am going to use my cell phone and just pay roaming while visiting my daughter in Italy, do I need to get my phone unlocked by TMob. I thought I only needed to get it unlocked if I was gonna buy an Italian sim card which Im not. Also, I think I might roll the dice and use my tri band and try to get by on the 1800 freq as I will be in urban areas such as Milan and Rome and otherwise with her so I can use her phone in a pinch.

Correct about unlocking. Need that only if you put in another FOREIGN SIM. Make sure you have world class enabled before you leave. T-MO will love it.

Have a great trip. Plz report back on 1800 coverage especially if it is better than expected.

Stan

[dripley]

I live in Canada and 2 years ago I purchased a Pay-as-you-Go Vodafone 226 for use in Germany while we were on holiday. In October, we are going to visit Italy & Spain. My question is, can I purchase a different SIM card for this phone to use in both these countries or 2 seperate cards, one for each country?

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by dripley

I live in Canada and 2 years ago I purchased a Pay-as-you-Go Vodafone 226 for use in Germany while we were on holiday. In October, we are going to visit Italy & Spain. My question is, can I purchase a different SIM card for this phone to use in both these countries or 2 seperate cards, one for each country?

Let's start with the obvious....there is a good chance the phone is (sim) locked. Think of a computer booting up. The computer goes through a whole series of checks. So does a mobile phone. When a gsm phone starts up, the first thing it looks for is if there is a sim card. If not you immediately get a message to insert a sim card. The next thing it looks for is whether the sim card is authorized. You see since companies sell or give away phones, they want to be able to prevent you from leaving them and going to a competitor by simply inserting another sim card (one of the good qualities of gsm over some other technologies). So they put a code in telling the phone not to allow another company's sim card. This is called locking the phone. Now phones can be unlocked. For a while, the unlocking codes of Nokia had been compromised and it was relatively easy for anybody to unlock a Nokia phone by entering the unlocking code. the misereable telcoms did not like that and Nokia has tightened up its security on that. Pros can unlock most phones either with the code or by tampering with the boot up program with various cables.

So you have to determine if your phone is locked. If it is, you have to get it unlocked. It can be done in various way. You can do a google search and find people who do it over the net or find somebody at home withthe knowledge.

Once the phone is unlocked, you can put in any sim card you want. Whether you need separate sim cards for the two countries really depends on just how you are going to use your mobile. If mostly just for receiving calls, the first sim card you buy will probably be sufficient as the eu has moved to limit the amount you pay to receive calls when roaming (when you're using the card in a country other than its original country)...if OTOH you will be making a lot of calls, Italian and Spanish sim cards are reltively inexpensive but I don't know how much it costs to call Canada (or the USA) on them. Perhaps a little research is necessary. There are also cards out that allow free reception of calls throughout many parts of the world and don't give you the need to get separate sim cards. These are all parts of many discussions here.

BTW if you're unsure whether your phone is unlocked, simply insert the sim card of a company other than the one who sold you the phone. Even if the phone doesn't have the proper frequencies for the region you're in, either you will get a pretty immediate message when the phone starts to boot up that you have an unauthorized sim card or you won't get this message....if you don't get this message even if the phone doesn't register on a network, chances are the phone is unlocked.

[dripley]

Dear MATHA531,

Thanks for the prompt reply. My phone is locked and attempts to unlock it 18 months ago proved fruitless. I will have another try and hopefully I will be successful.

Denis

[inquisitor]

All SIMlocked phones purchased in Germany can be unlocked free of charge after a period of 24 months. However therefore you'll need to send a proof of purchase to the operator, the phone is tied to, which is Vodafone in your case.
Vodafone also has a form for retrieving unlock codes on their website. Maybe they record when phones register on their network for the first time and so they can determine the age of the phone even without proof of purchase.
Just find out the IMEI (serial number) of your phone by entering *#06# or looking below it's battery and enter it on the linked page. If you're lucky you'll get your unlock code within seconds.
In any case let us know if you succeeded.

[dg7feq]

As far as i can remember the hotline can help you in this case and find out if the phone is already free to unlock. I am not sure about the exact procedure, i just remember that i bought some 2nd hand phone on ebay some years ago and was able to unlock it quite easily even though i was not the original buyer of the hardware.

Chris

[inquisitor]

You're right Chris.

It just crossed my mind, that Vodafone should actually know the date of purchase as Vodafone SIMs need to be registered upon purchase. So if they have a database linking each IMSI (SIM card identity) with the IMEI (phone serial number) of the bundled phone, they can conclude from the SIM registration date when the phone was bought, even without gathering data from their network.

To prove this theory, I just got an IMEI from a friend's locked Vodafone phone and entered it in the mentioned form, which resulted this message:

Ihr Entsperr-Code ist leider noch nicht freigegeben. Sie können ihn erst im Januar 2010 hier finden.

in English:

Unfortunately your unlock code has not been released yet. It won't be released until January 2010.

So obviously this unlock procedure is completely automatized these days and you'll only need the IMEI of the locked phone to unlock it not earlier than 24 months after purchase.

[Motel75]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

It just crossed my mind, that Vodafone should actually know the date of purchase as Vodafone SIMs need to be registered upon purchase.

I think it might also be an approximation of when the phone was probably sold. My wife got a Vodafone phone unlocked at a Vf shop after about 21 months (a couple of years ago). The sales assistant told us it didn't have to be exactly two years, and received the unlock code by calling a number and giving them the IMEI. Either way, there's no harm in trying Vodafone's online unlocking service.