Derek

Kidding? I was with Cingular for about three weeks before I had them unlock my phone. They asked why, I said so I could buy a sim pay as you go card when roaming. Someone called me back that afternoon to talk me through it.

dtsm

Wow, that is a first and most have been very recent policy change???? They never unlocked their phones in the past (nor did AT&T). You're lucky

Derek

I double checked to make sure I was remembering correctly. I bought the phone July 27, and went to Europe at the end of August. I know I had it all taken care of before the trip, so it was at most 3 weeks after signing up with them. And after getting a free Razr (well, it will be free if they ever get my rebate to me...).

vincom

You were VERY lucky, normally they make postr paid customers wait 90 days before you are allowed to do such a thing.

-Vincent

mstraveler

Going to tag onto this thread which I have read entirely. Am a bit new to actually understanding cell phones, but my questions arise after reading the above. Have a RAZR v3 from Cingular and will be going to Paris for a week.

If I find someone in San Francisco to unlock that phone do I get a new sim card in Paris?? Or does that allow me to use the card I have there? If I need a new sim card is it really easy to find a store that will sell them? Don't want to be running around Paris doing this on my vacation

Non-NonRev

When you first got your phone, Cingular "locked" their SIM to the phone (in other words, the phone would only work with that specific SIM). Unlocking is nothing more than a programming change that lets the phone work with any SIM.

In your case, if you want a French number, you would simply buy a prepaid SIM in Paris, and you will have a local number with the cost advantages listed above. And since your RAZR is quad-band, there will not be any problems with European compatability.

On the other hand, if you Cingular account has international roaming enabled, you will be able to make and receive calls on your phone without having to do anything else - as soon as you power your phone on in Paris, it will register with whichever French cellular company that Cingular partners with, and you're good to go.

Keep in mind that people will have to call your US number - even if they are in Paris. The advantage to this approach is that there is no need to tell people a French number - if you expect only to get calls from the US and don't expect to make calls to French numbers, or to receive calls from French callers, this approach might better suit your needs.

cpx

Good advise... . just a couple of notes from my end:

Also the international roaming charges are rather high if you use
Cingular, but if you dont expect to make many calls, this may
turn out to be cheaper.

Also SMS is an economical way to communicate when you are roaming
internationally. generally its around or less than 25c/message outgoing.

if you expect to make a lot of local call.. and receive a lot of incoming calls..
I'd recommend getting a local SIM from Paris.

mstraveler

To be honest, I don't know that I will need it all, but if I do it will be to call museums or restaurants there, or if my husband brings his so that we can do separate things and be able to get in touch with each other. Not sure what SMS is...?

Fredd

Yes, Cingular is idiotic about it. We were planning a trip to Australia which we have since cancelled due to a relative's extremely serious illness.

When we purchased our new cellphone (the previous one had malfunctioned) we discovered after the fact that the 90-day rule even applies to a new phone purchased as an "upgrade" to existing service on which the phone has been unlocked.

When an appeal to a supervisor and the local Cingular outlet didn't work, I wrote a letter to the president stating why I wanted my new phone unlocked immediately with an Australian SIM card in it (to keep it on night and day without worrying about expensive calls during 3 weeks in Oz) and pointed out that we would be happy to pay 90 days service or more in advance since the excuse given by employees that we might take our "subsidized" phone and use it elsewhere was the only rationale put forward for the 90-day rule.

I was surprised and initially pleased to subsequently get a phone call from the "office of the president" until I came to realize that it was just another flunky whose job it is to respond to complaint letters to the president.

Said she, after telling me how "reasonable" my letter was, she would "make an exception" to this "Fortune 500" company policy and request that technical support send me the unlocking code immediately, and that requests from the "office of the president" often worked. She was not the least bit interested in discussing my suggestion that they tweak this policy to help customers in situations such as ours while addressing their concerns as stated to me.

Haven't heard a thing since...

cpx

SMS is Text Messaging... we call it Text Messaging here.. rest of the
planet calls it SMS (Short Message Service... IIRC)


Just make sure before you leave, you call Cingular to activate the
International roaming.

And remember.. you will end up paying double the cost for calling each other..
(incoming and outgoing cost) but if you dont expect to make
a lot of calls.. this might be a cheaper option.

if you buy a local SIM, I think you will end up spending around $20 per SIM
any way.

Do the math and see what works for you. Also to check the local providers
you can check out the site at: www.gsmworld.com (click on GSM roaming)
and visit the local providers site for "pre-paid" options and places to buy
them.


Good luck!

cpx

I've observed the same... it was much easy to get a phone unlocked
through T-mobile. cingular was just bad. even for the phone/service
that was over a year old.

Sometimes its better to buy an unlocked phone from an online
vendor or Ebay.

mstraveler

This site http://www.thetravelinsider.info/roa...aunlocking.htm (sorry I don't know how to just write "here" and have it make the link) looked reasonable for $25. The downside is that you have to send your phone, but it seemed that if you had a spare (I have some old ones) you can just take the SIM card out and put in the spare while it is gone.

cpx

I think $25 is steep.. but shipping costs.. you might be able to
buy a cheap phone for as little as $60

check these out:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&Recs=10<br />

(I dont have experience buying anything from tigerdirect - FYI)

again.. do the math and see if its worth it to get the phone unlocked
this way... try again with cingular and see if they can unlock it for you.

Fredd

Yes, I pointed out that out in my communications with Cingular as well but it's annoying to have to buy one more piece of hardware and carry it around.

If we're going to check our messages once or twice a day and make the very occasional call I'm reconciled to the Cingular International rate plan. There are circumstances such as those I've described where it would be useful to have the option to insert a local SIM card without abandoning poor little Cingular.

I really think it would be a minor selling point for a company scrapping for points of market share to make it easier for folks such as us to be able to insert a new SIM card into an unlocked phone.

cpx

thats what it looks like.. so I stay away from them and recommend other
options to people.

Since they have you in a contract already, I dont see a huge point into
keeping your phone locked in the first place. (for the provider I mean)