Phone Suggestions for Traveling in Europe

If I am planning a trip to Europe, how can I buy and activate a cell
phone which will work for the short-term during that trip? I currently
have Verizon service in the U.S. Can I buy an unlocked GSM cell phone
plus a sim card which works in the EU and then forward my calls from my
Verizion phone to the new GSM phone? Any suggestions on sources for
the new phone and sim card? How about if I would like to be able to
receive email as well while roaming in the EU?


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"Richard Kaplan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> If I am planning a trip to Europe, how can I buy and activate a cell
> phone which will work for the short-term during that trip? I currently
> have Verizon service in the U.S. Can I buy an unlocked GSM cell phone
> plus a sim card which works in the EU and then forward my calls from my
> Verizion phone to the new GSM phone? Any suggestions on sources for
> the new phone and sim card? How about if I would like to be able to
> receive email as well while roaming in the EU?

Please check www.prepaidgsm.net for answers to this question.

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Donald R. Newcomb
DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net

At 16 May 2007 08:44:38 -0400 Richard Kaplan wrote:
> If I am planning a trip to Europe, how can I buy and activate a cell
> phone which will work for the short-term during that trip? I currently
> have Verizon service in the U.S.

I believe Verizon has an international option- they'll sell you (or
preferably rent you?) a GSM phone an a SIM card linked to your Verizon
account to roam overseas. I've read it's comparitively expensive, however.


> Can I buy an unlocked GSM cell phone plus a sim card which works in
> the EU and then forward my calls from my Verizion phone to the new GSM
phone?

You can, but you might not want to. I suspect Verizon's international
rates aren't very attractive either.

You might instead look at a VoIP service to "bridge" from Verizon to your
EU SIM. I like Voicestick.com, for example. You'd get a free US-based
Voicestick VoIP number, add a few bucks in their prepaid plan, and set it
to forward to your Europhone at low VoIP rates (a few cents per minute)
and forward your Verizon phone to the local US-based Voicestick number.
It'd likely be a fraction of the cost of forwarding the Verizon phone
directly.

> Any suggestions on sources for the new phone and sim card?

A cheap European compatible phone would be cheap on eBay- look for
anything "unlocked" that uses European frequenccies (900 and 1800MHz.)

For the choice of SIM check out the various SIMs at prepaidgsm.net. They
list the prepaid options from just about every country in the world,
including a few "international SIMs" that work in any country. You can
buy most European SMs ahead of time from web vendors like
www.telestial.com but you'll pay a bit of a premium for the convenience
v. buying locally when you arrive. However, buying ahead of time allows
you to have your EU number in advance to set up all of the forwarding
before you leave.



> How about if I would like to be able to receive email as well while
> roaming in the EU?


That'll be harder- you'll need a phone that does e-mail, of course, or at
least that can be tethered to a PDA or laptop, and a prepaid plan that
supports data. I don't think any of the international SIMs support data,
but they do handle SMS, with incoming usually being free regardless of
where you are.

Richard Kaplan wrote:
> If I am planning a trip to Europe, how can I buy and activate a cell
> phone which will work for the short-term during that trip? I currently
> have Verizon service in the U.S. Can I buy an unlocked GSM cell phone
> plus a sim card which works in the EU and then forward my calls from my
> Verizion phone to the new GSM phone? Any suggestions on sources for the
> new phone and sim card? How about if I would like to be able to receive
> email as well while roaming in the EU?

"http://www.hiusa.ekit.com/ekit/MobileHome"

Get a Voicestick account, and forward your Verizon number to your
Voicestick number, and program your Voicestick account to ring your
European cell phone. This will save you money. Also, with this method,
if you wanted to you could buy SIM cards in each country which is
cheaper, and then change the phone number that Voicestick forwards the
call to, so it all remains transparent.

E-mail is tougher, as I don't think that text messages would be forwarded.

For e-mail, go to an Internet cafe, or bring along a PDA with WiFi.

Just a warning since voicestick was suggested. Well, they have doubled
their rates to quite a few countries including several carriers in the
UK. For examle Tmobile/Virgin and IOM sim cards used to be only be
$0.15 to forward to via voicestick. They are now $0.30.

SMS;688313 Wrote:
> Richard Kaplan wrote:-
> If I am planning a trip to Europe, how can I buy and activate a cell
> phone which will work for the short-term during that trip? I
> currently
> have Verizon service in the U.S. Can I buy an unlocked GSM cell phone
>
> plus a sim card which works in the EU and then forward my calls from
> my
> Verizion phone to the new GSM phone? Any suggestions on sources for
> the
> new phone and sim card? How about if I would like to be able to
> receive
> email as well while roaming in the EU?-
>
>
>




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mrcamp