Well, I'm finally going to buy a mobile phone. I've never owned one and am so far quite bewildered by the process. I walked in to a local carphonewarehouse and there was an entire wall of phones, each with half a dozen providers, each with half a dozen plans. The sales staff there were NO help at all. Another local store is giving away an Xbox and a 'free' phone to sign up with some plan. This leads me to believe that I'm about to get ripped off . I don't need an Xbox, but would be happy with the cash equivalent!

So what do I (not) need?
- LOW use. I'd be surprised to talk an hour a month most months.
- Mostly for use when traveling, so needs to work here, Europe, NA, India.
- Durable and lightweight. I'd like to have it in my jersey pocket when cycling in case of emergency.
- I need neither bells nor whistles (camera, MP3, etc), but want good sound quality with increasable volume.

Most of these points seem to be provider-independent. Is that true? Do I want PAYG or monthly plan? If PAYG, do minutes expire when I reload? Do I need an unlocked phone?

Is there a decent website that explains all of this?

I know nothing. I am a true newbie when it comes to mobile phones, so any advice is welcome.

Thanks,

Dr. PITUK

This is just my 2 pence worth so take it for what is worth

I'm not going to recommend specific models or brands, but I have allways had good luck with Nokia, but others are good as well.

As for a website, check out www.PrePaidGSM.net -- they have a huge amount of information.

I would get an unlocked phone, if possible (you can buy them cheaply on eBay). You can buy the phone and the service separately

I would do the pay as you go. The airtime does expire and the time varies with the provider. You will get a SIM card from the provider which stores the details of your phone number, etc. If you switch providers later, with an unlocked phone you just switch the SIM cards.

You may end up wanting multiple SIM cards: If you travel frequently (or for longer periods) to one country you may want to buy a local SIM card. For example, I am in Germany 3 times a year and so have a Deutsche Telekom SIM I use while there. Roaming is still very expensive -- your UK Provider will probably charge you an arm and leg to use the phone outside the UK.

There are also "International" SIMs -- these usually have better rates than roaming but not as good as a local SIM. That makes them good for countries you don't visit often. I have one from Lichtenstein (United Mobile) but there are a bunch based on the Isle of Man which have the advantage of a UK # (Lichtenstein is country code 423 and people allways say "What???" when I give them that number )

Oh, and if you are traveling to US and Canada, we use different frequencies here. Ideally you would look for a "quad band" phone that handles the two NA and two rest of world frequencies, but these are more expensive. Tri band phones are more common but make sure your's has 900/1800 and one of 850/1900 rather than the other way around.

I hope this helps. Reply with any additional questions and I'll try and help.

By the sound of it one of the important issues for you will be the roaming charges. There have been noises from EU regulators that they intend to get tough with operators over those but that won't happen overnight.

For that reason alone it may be worth checking out this Savastore operation which was launched at Christmas (found an email today about them).
http://www.travelfone.co.uk/simcard.html

They claim zero charges for incoming calls in certain countries. You will need to go through the rather tiresome drop down menu routine to check specific rates though. A fair few countries are covered it seems.
http://www.travelfone.co.uk/partners.html

Best of luck!

Dr Groggy

Thanks for the information. As I thought, it leads to more questions .

Thanks. I'll look through there.

What about getting a locked phone (thus very cheap/free), paying someone to unlock it? It seems easy, but there must be a reason not to do it. I just can't figure out what it is! This is the most confusing part to me. They seem willing to give me a free phone, lots of minutes and an Xbox, but I can walk down the street, get it unlocked for a tenner (or in India for a tenth of that), and buy a new sim. This can't be profitable for them!

So if I change SIMs, do I still have to pay UK roaming? I thought that once I removed my UK SIM and put in a foreign SIM that the UK provider stopped charging me. I thought that was the point of switching SIMs. Have I misunderstood?

That sounds like a good plan, especially if I'm zooming around. I don't intend on giving my mobile number out much, so I don't mind which country code it is.

I now have more information at least to try to brave a store .

That looks really interesting for having my wife call me when I'm abroad (except US). The other rates look quite high, but I guess that's the price I pay .

How many SIMs would people generally have? 1? 2? 8? Would you switch them regularly or is that a hassle?

I also realize that one useful thing for me (at least on my main number) would be voice mail. The phone won't be on that much, but it would be good to get messages.

THanks,

Dr. PITUK

As long as you pay safe and go for any popular Nokia, Motorola or SonyEricsson phone, you should have no problem getting it unlocked "down at the Market" .

Regards
I

I've only tried to unlock a phone once, with no success. Other people have had better luck. So there can be a bit of a risk. I don't know about the UK but in the US the free (or cheap) phones and bonuses all come with a 1 or 2 year contract -- even if you unlock the phone you still pay monthly. Most people don't know about or don't care about unlocking so they probably don't lose that much.

I didn't explain it well -- if you don't change SIMs and use your UK SIM in (say) France or Germany you will pay expensive roaming rates. Even if it is the same provider (Orange, T-Mobile, etc) in both countries. The EU is supposed to change that at some point but AFAIK not yet. If you have a pay as a go plan you don't pay anything if you don't use it (the whole point )

Some people collect SIMs like others collect FF miles Switching usually involves removing the battery -- its not a big deal but I wouldn't want to do it constantly. Depending on the phone you have, you can get a "Dual SIM" adapter that lets you install two SIMs and switch between them. Only one is active (and so only one can make a receive calls) but you can switch between them easily. Search eBay for "Dual SIM" or "Ghost SIM"

Hope this helped.

Switching SIMs is only a minor hassle if you can remember what's what. Obviously if you switch SIMs regularly people calling you must know which number to call. I would prefer to have just one SIM for all countries myself, it's just one less thing to worry about.

In parallel with voicemail you will probably learn to use text messaging, or at least to receive them from another mobile phone user. They can be a very efficient way of receiving messages while abroad without having to pay charges to check your voicemail. Sending texts attracts a (small) charge as you might expect.

Dr Groggy

Thanks for all the help.

I'm going to go in to the shop tomorrow or Thursday and get my hands dirty . At least now I think I understand enough to ask sensible questions.

Thanks,

Dr. PITUK

Yup, most are provider independent.

Low usage == PAYG.

Minutes expire after NN months, where NN is typically 6 or 12. Put money in and the clock resets.

Each provider has a different pricing scheme (day of week, time of day, maybe usage). I used Virgin Mobile because it was the simplest, and they're everywhere.

Use outside of UK, esp U.S. of A. == Get an unlocked TRI (or QUAD)-BAND phone. Unlocked means it can be used on any GSM provider. Tri (or quad) band means it works on three (or four) frequency bands, and the US, in particular, uses frequencies not used in UK or Europe. I bought an Ericsson T-39 18 months ago, and it's been fine in the US, UK and Europe.

With some PAYG providers, you cannot roam with their SIM chip in the US. You will need a US provider SIM chip (which will be a lot cheaper anyhow). I've bought T-Mobile SIM chips on e-bay. Far less expensive than buying at a T-mobile store.

Charges: Unlike much of the rest of the world, all calls are charged for in the US (i.e., incoming as well as outgoing). Advantage? Someone calling your mobile phone from abroad doesn't get gouged outrageous cell phone charges the way we do when we call someone's mobile phone from the US to Europe.

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If you're going for Pay as You Go (which sounds most reasonable), it may be worth looking at Orange. My parents have SIM cards in the UK that IIRC top themselves up automatically by direct debit when they reach a certain trigger level. That way, you don't end up running out of credit. They also have international roaming on those SIMs (I know my Dad has used his in Thailand and France).

I don't know the full details and don't know how the rates compare with other networks but they find it a low-hassle way of getting low-usage phones.

I'd recommend a pre-paid sim (any to start) and a used phone to start off your process. You dont want to sign up for a 12-18 month contract and free phone and find a month later that you hate both.

1) Buy yourself a a prepaid SIM, probably from T-mobile.
2) Go to craigslist.com or Ebay.co.uk and get a basic quad-band Nokia phone like the Nokia E50. You should be able to get it used for about �100-�120. It is an excellent phone - I have one myself. Two actually.

Use that setup for a bit, maybe a month - and see what you think. If you like it continue. if not, you can change phone and or prepaid or contract service. You wont lose much, if anything, selling an already used phone

You will also be able to transfer your initial phone number from that pre-paid sim to a contract, if and when you decide to get one. All you have to do is request something called a PAC code from the mobile phone service company and they are legally obliged to give it to you. The PAC code enables the transfer of your mobile phone number to you at your new phone company.

All pre-paid cards on the major companies will allow you to roam in Europe if you buy a certain balance. For India and North America, your best bet is a prepaid local SIM anyway, since even with a UK contract your charges will still be quite high outside Europe.

I'd suspect that a Vodaphone or T-Mobile contract would be your best bet. Even on low minutes a �25 or so contract with most companies usually gives you a better deal than most pre-paid. And if you if you travel a lot, the roaming rates are better than pre-paid too.

But that said, I myself find that although I have a UK 02 contract, It is far cheaper for me to use a pre-paid American-based SIM when I am over there. I bought one for Cingular Mobile on Ebay.co.uk and I use that in the US.

If you are low usage, I'd go with a Virgin Mobile Pay as You Go SIM activated on direct debit. The rates are reasonable and if you activate direct debit, you get international roaming turned on and have most of the benefits of a contract phone with no commitments. If you go with a contract plan in a couple of months, shelve this phone and don't port the number. You can keep the Virgin SIM available for as a fallback with very minimal usage.

What plan you want to go with really depends on your calling habits and you need a little bit of time to truly sort that out.

The roaming SIM described by someone else is a nice addition to your tool kit, but I probably wouldn't use it in the UK unless you are really low usage. The phone uses a callback process for making calls. You dial the number and it automatically sends an sms to triggering an incoming call to you. Your phone number is not a UK number but an IOM number. On many tariffs, this will be treated as a UK number, but not all. I have a SIM from globalsimcard.co.uk and like it.

For the US, you can get a prepaid SIM for T-Mobile relatively cheaply off e-bay. You can forward the travel SIMs to that number without a charge or just give that number out.

I just left the UK last week for Dubai. (I live in Dubai but frequent the UK). I left a message on my UK mobile simply saying, "Hi, I'm no longer in the UK. Call me at my Dubai mobile 00-971-50-XXX-XXXX and that seems to work fine).

If you are packing a notebook in the US, don't forget about something like Skype. You can call the UK really cheap off it from any room equipped with Broadband. Also for US$14 you can get unlimited calls to the US off Skype.

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