TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice

Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice

Mark Crispin (MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU)
Mon, 16 May 2005 15:52:11 (PDT)

On Mon, 16 May 2005, John Levine wrote:

> It appears that neither Cingular nor T-Mobile will sell you a prepaid
> SIM in the US without a phone.

Local Cingular and T-Mobile stores here told me that they'd sell just the
SIM card. IIRC, it was $25 or $35.

>> Assuming that you're buying a phone in the USA, I would recommend
>> against the GSM carriers. GSM is primarily an urban service in the
>> USA, and coverage can be spotty or non-existant outside of the large
>> cities.

> That used to be true, but Cingular is rapidly switching their whole
> network to GSM, to the extent that they're selling GSM-only phones
> now. If you have a GSM phone, particularly if it's both GSM 850/1900,
> it should work all over the place.

It's still the case in the west coast that that analog, TDMA, and CDMA
coverage is quite a bit more thorough than GSM. The GSM network here
is getting better, but it's not there yet.

In Alaska, a TDMA+analog phone is much more useful than a GSM or CDMA
phone.

In Canada, most of the analog-only holdouts now have CDMA. GSM still
has a way to go.

>> Another reason for going with Verizon is you buy a phone in the USA is
>> that a US GSM 1900 phone is of no use outside of the USA and Canada.

> Hey, my US GSM phone worked great in Argentina. The rates weren't
> great, but that's a separate issue.

Is your phone GSM 1900 (single band), or is it a tri-band
(900/1800/1900) or quad-band (850/900/1800/1900) phone?

The cheap phones tend to be GSM 1900 only in North American, and GSM
900/1800 only elsewhere.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

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