By polite agreements Oftel (UK regulator) had with the networks, UK mobiles have to be unlocked upon request of the user. The only caveats are differences in how long the user needs to be on the network, or spend on the network + a fee to unlock.

Oftel is looking to update their policy. See: http://www.oftel.gov.uk/publications...02/sim1102.htm

[This message has been edited by NickP 1K (edited 05-23-2003).]

What have I done?

Due to reasons outside of my control, I'm with AT&T (company plan, etc.). I've been happy enough so far. Until I upgraded my phone.

I was going to Europe and wanted my phone to work. My roommate had switched to the GSM service and was pleased (he bought the Nokia). So I march into the store and (admitting much shallowness here) fell in love with the cute little SonyEricsson. Roommate cautions me that it's only GSM (not dual or tri band), but it only vaguely registers.

That weekend I flew to Syracuse, NY. Phone didn't work in the airport (SF0), didn't work *at all* in any place in NY. At home (in the city of SF), I get spotty service. Down the street at my coffee shop - zippo.

Went to France - perfection. Worked *everywhere*, even the most remote areas of Provence. SMSs came through and could be sent, etc.

Now to my dilemma - should I wait it out (installation of more GSM towers) or should I fall back to my old phone? I'd have to change plans to go back to the old and the new plan is significantly less expensive for the same number of minutes. But if I can't use them, what's the point?

Bingo ... let me just say that I feel your pain.

I've had the T68i with AT&T Wireless for 4 months now ... I'm just waiting to hit that 6-month window so I can switch phones at the promotional price. Because the GSM reception on the T68 is abysmal. I've heard rumors that it's more to do with the phone than the GSM service per se ... but I'm not sure. I'm certainly going to make sure my next phone is tri-band and has an external antenna.

I do know that their plans for GSM rollout are quite a bit behind schedule, which is contributing to the problem. I can't tell you how close I am to giving up on them entirely and casting my lot in with Verizon.

Good news for you, though ... AT&T does give you a 30-day grace period from the time when you sign your GSM contract to switch back to your old plan (whatever it was) without penalty or obligation. Seems they've had a lot of that this last year or so ...

Mook

The T68i has one of the best RF receptions I've seen on a phone, Ericsson was one of the last to switch from external antennaes to internal and they certainly did their homework, looks like At&T is at fault here, perhaps the upcoming roaming agreements with T-mobile might help?

Get a Siemens S46 and convert to a dual mode GSM/TDMA account. AT&T's network is decent and in places like Chicago it's already set up to run at 1900Mhz so it works fine but in SFO it's optimized for 850Mhz and until they turn on the lower band, there's really quite a few holes at 1900Mhz. With the Siemens S46, when you find you've got bad coverage you can switch back to TDMA and keep most of your features and most importantly GET AND MAKE calls.

Scott, the T68 and T68i's are horrible compared to similar Nokia's in a weak signal area... I would have to concur with others who report issues with the t68

When and if people go to 3G cell phones, a European 3G phone could work in Japan with either NTT FOMA service or Vodaphone 3G, and vice versa.

Until then, the Japanese PDC system (2G) is totally incompatible with any other standard. This is the standard used by NTT DoCoMo and Vodaphone (Jphone).

The third Japanese operator, KDDI, is going to use the CDMA2000 standard for 3G, and it's theoretically possible that this could work with U.S. CDMA phones someday.

It's virtually impossible to find prepaid cellphone service in Japan. Hotels gouge for short term rentals -- would you believe my hotel charges Y5000 (USD45) a day plus Y120 (USD1) a minute? If you're a frequent visitor, maybe your company can arrange a phone, but you can't get one individually, since you need to have proof of residency to sign up for a regular cellphone account.

I have the AT&T Siemens S46 "Global Phone" and love it. When my co-workers start bragging about their Tri-Band phone, I refer to my "Quad-Band" since it also does TDMA. Shuts em up. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

It's not as tiny as many phones today, but I dont see that as a bad thing. (remember Will Farrels character on SNL with the ultra-tiny phone?)

The one big annoyance is the lack of a headphone jack as stated earlier. You have to use their proprietary ear-bud.

I must have been lucky then http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

Never had any decent experiences with Nokia's. After the 6110 it went downhill...

$45 a day http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/eek.gif

Amex arranged rental for for me through a company called mobell in the UK (they claim to have an office in Japan too) for £5 (approx 8USD) per day. The only problem I had was "Cellular Bashfulness" in public because all the Japanese had far more advanced phones than mine!

http://www.mobell.com

I did take my 3G phone out with me but it wouldn't log onto any of the WCDMA networks (J Phone and FOMA) because there are no roaming agreements in place yet.

DoCoMo is working on getting FOMA service to accept European 3G phones in Japan. Despite having just one standard for 3G/UMTS, there are differences between European 3G and FOMA. This comes about because 3G allows so many options that no single system implements all of them.

If you want small (really small), check out the new Samsung S300

Tiny tri-band...tons of features...around 330 Euros without service here in germany.....

DoCoMo was scheduled for an upgrade in June and Three, UK's 3G operator (part owned by NTT) is very keen to implement roaming with them. J-Phone is supposed to do this already but the parent company (Vodafone) is being selective about roaming agreements (e.g. other Vodfone companies), presumably because the ability use one's own number in Japan gives Voda a small competitive advantage.

Hopefully, on my next trip out there, I'll be able to make a Video call home.

DoCoMo is already allowing their users to roam international as long as the SIM is a newer USIM.

Also EVERY 3G WCDMA phone in Europe to date (or planned) supports fallback to a GSM/GPRS network. In some cases some devices even support GSM900/1800 and 1900 (along with the 3G 2100)

I wish! The Motorola phone is very compliant in this respect (to the extent I wish I'd bought one instead - it even works on US GSM networks). The more popular NEC models (more popular because they do video calling) fall back to GSM only. All the neat featues of my phone disapear when I roam onto the GSM network that 3UK have partnered with.