Travel Technology - UK, Austria, Czech Republic GSM Question

Hi. Need some advice on GSM networks.

I am going to London in two weeks, staying there for one night, then going on to Vienna and staying there one night before continuing onto Singapore. But I will be coming back three weeks later, flying in from Singapore and going straight to Prague, staying there for a few days, coming back to Vienna for one night, then flying back to London where I'll be there for a few days. (Hope that wasn't too confusing!)

Now I have an unlocked Sony Ericsson Z800i and I would like to try 3G, but I would like it to be those prepaid SIM/USIM cards that can be used in Vienna and Prague as well. I'm wondering if anyone's had experience with this (preferred networks such as Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, O2?) or if I should just stick to my Cingular Wireless SIM card for the entire trip.

I intend on using the card mainly for SMSing friends and family in Indonesia, Japan, England, and the US.

Thanks!

In the last 3 weeks, I've been in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and now China. My Cingular phone did NOT work in any of those places. Incoming worked fine, however everytime I tried to make a call, it said that "outgoing calls blocked". This was after calling Cingular 3 times and paying for their international roaming service!!

My t-mobile worked just fine. I was able to make and receive calls in all the areas as well as get email via my blackberry. The cost though was pretty high! :(

So, my advice to you is to trash the cingular card and go with T-mobile, or possibly vodaphone.

In the last 3 weeks, I've been in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and now China. My Cingular phone did NOT work in any of those places. Incoming worked fine, however everytime I tried to make a call, it said that "outgoing calls blocked". This was after calling Cingular 3 times and paying for their international roaming service!!

My t-mobile worked just fine. I was able to make and receive calls in all the areas as well as get email via my blackberry. The cost though was pretty high! :(

So, my advice to you is to trash the cingular card and go with T-mobile, or possibly vodaphone.

Cingular shouldn't be a problem, in your case it sounds more like they messed up.

I know a lot of people that roam off Cingular in Europe every day without a problem.

I just sent a client to Austria, Germany, Poland, anbd Slovokia with Cingular intl GSM Romaing, we called her fine and she caled us back fine... Just make sure you know the correct dialing procedure! Call Cingular prior to make sure you do!

Make sure you sign up for Intl Roaming with Cingular BEFORE you go and confirm with different reps its on there, otherwise you will be SOL. If your phone is unlocked you can pop in any SIM you like. BTW that phone doesnt have any overly impressive "3G features." It's a GSM/GPRS/UMTS camera phone wth lots of memory, funtionality will be virtually the same. GSM/GPRS/EDGE are more like 2.5/2G. UMTS isn't even really operationally deployed ont he open market anywhere aside from select market in the US (Cingular Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle + 15 totaly by End of Year). It also operate in Japan, but they use the 2100 Band like in South Korea.

You'll be hard pressed to find a carrier who is using UMTS over there aside from a few countries where its in testing. Most countries that have it only begen deployment and buildoutof UMTS of mid 2004.



-Vincent