I completely forgot about prepaid cards.... thanks Greg! Now that I recall, there's a card from Swisscom which is specifically designed for the international traveller.

It's a prepaid roaming GSM card that carries a swiss number. It's somewhat difficult to use (can't just dial out, have to use special commands to send the number and the system calls you back and connects you) and the rates aren't the best, but it roams in a *lot* of places. Best of all, it can be recharged from whereever over the phone with a credit card.

On buying a phone. You need to be wary of cheap 900 or 900/1800 MHz GSM phones. More often than not, the really cheap ones are SIM-locked to a particular network provider.

If you only travel to one country, that's not a problem, but if you plan to travel from place to place and use different prepaid SIM cards while en-route, a SIM-locked phone won't work. The phone will reject any SIM other than that of the home carrier, and most prepaid SIMs will not roam outside of the country in which you bought them.

I know it's easy to get a phone unlocked in the far east very cheaply. I do not know if this is possible in Europe. When buying a phone, it's important to make sure that it's "SIM free". SIM free handsets go for 3-10x what a sim locked unit does.

Jeff

[This message has been edited by kanebear (edited 09-07-2001).]