Service in Baghdad

Good Afternoon

In the near future, I will be departing for Baghdad for a while. I have
looked on the ATT website, and it claims that service is available in
Baghdad and most of the other areas of Iraq.

I know this may be an odd question, but has anyone out here had any
experience with cellular in Baghdad? I have heard that service is
unreliable(which I understand) I'm just wondering how unreliable it is. I
am considering a Satellite phone, but would much rather use the cell so that
I can get service inside.

Thanks for any help!

In news:ZvHvi.204495$LE1.162297@newsfe13.lga "John" <john@bluewho.com>
wrote:

> In the near future, I will be departing for Baghdad for a while. I
> have looked on the ATT website, and it claims that service is
> available in Baghdad and most of the other areas of Iraq.
>

Be aware that regardless of the coverage and quality of the service,
you'll need a phone that operates on the 900 & 1800 MHz GSM bands,
rather than the 850 & 1900 bands used in the US.

The listings at http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_iq.shtml
only show 900 MHz being used, but who knows how old that info might be.

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com

I heard about that years ago, I guess MCI had the contract then. when I
looked on the GSM.org site it lists 3 different companies.


"danny burstein" <dannyb@panix.com> wrote in message
news:f9o0j3$sqa$1@reader2.panix.com...
> In <Xns998A819022389VeebleFetzer@216.250.184.7> Bert Hyman
> <bert@iphouse.com> writes:
>
>>In news:ZvHvi.204495$LE1.162297@newsfe13.lga "John" <john@bluewho.com>
>>wrote:
>
>>> In the near future, I will be departing for Baghdad for a while. I
>>> have looked on the ATT website, and it claims that service is
>>> available in Baghdad and most of the other areas of Iraq.
>>>
>
>>Be aware that regardless of the coverage and quality of the service,
>>you'll need a phone that operates on the 900 & 1800 MHz GSM bands,
>>rather than the 850 & 1900 bands used in the US.
>
> For an initial period, the US and contracters
> expanded the network there using off-the-shelf US
> oriented equipment, letting the staffers in the Green
> Zone and some other areas of the city (back then
> people from the West actually walked around) use
> their US handhelds.
>
> (and... it used area code, Yes, NANPA area code, "914",
> commonly assigned to the northern NYC suburbs).
>
> Don't know what's happened since.
>
>>The listings at http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_iq.shtml
>>only show 900 MHz being used, but who knows how old that info might be.
>
>
>
> --
> __________________________________________________ ___
> Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
> dannyb@panix.com
> [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]