Part 1 of 2 articles: the second covers cellular data in Europe
Last updated: August 2010
To many Americans, staying in touch with a cell phone while in Europe can seem difficult and expensive. But savvy travelers know it doesn’t have to be. Having a phone while you’re there can be a major time saver and convenience. This article tells you how to stay in touch and save money.
 Advanced mobile wireless use in Lucca, Italy |
Why don’t US cell phones “just work” in Europe? For various reasons, the United States developed and deployed wireless technologies that were incompatible with those deployed in the Rest Of the World, which went with a standard called GSM (“Global System for Mobiles” – this is one of the reasons why Europeans use the term “mobile” and not “cell phone”).
This meant that for many years, the only option for US travelers to Europe was to rent a GSM phone, which was expensive and inconvenient. No one could reach you on your US cell phone number; you had the hassle and cost of receiving and returning the phone, and both handset rental and calls were astonishingly expensive.
GSM comes to America
Today, you can buy US mobile phones that use the GSM system from AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile. So why don’t these phones “just work” in Europe? Although they use GSM, they work on different radio frequencies. To function in Europe, a GSM phone must operate (at the very least) on the 1800MHz frequency; to get the best European coverage it must operate on both 900MHz and 1800MHz. And this is just for regular GSM — for 3G services, you need 2100MHz in Europe and 1900MHz in the US.
The net? Make sure you buy a phone that clearly states is can be used internationally or is called a “World Phone”. If in doubt, find out what frequencies it offers and check them. There are more and more multi-band GSM phones coming on to the market every month, so the good news is that it’s now a lot easier to find a good international phone.
What if I’m on Verizon or Sprint?
Verizon uses a system called CDMA, and Sprint uses both CDMA and another proprietary system called iDEN, originally developed for Nextel. However, Verizon in particular has figured out that it is losing a lot of nice profitable international traffic as a result, and now has phones that support both US CDMA and international GSM frequencies. Verizon calls these “Global Phones“. The line-up changes every couple of months as new phones are released, but the Blackberry 8830, Storm 9550/9530 and Samsung Renown are all CDMA/GSM world phones available at the time of writing.
Verizon also offers a free GSM phone rental program for infrequent travelers — if you’ve been a subscriber for a while, they will lend you a phone at no charge for a short (less than 21-day) trip. Call Verizon on 800-711-8300 to find out if you qualify.
Sprint offers a flat rate $1.29 per minute overseas roaming charge for most GSM countries (i.e. those where Sprint has a roaming agreement). For Verizon subscribers, it’s a little more complicated: Verizon GSM roaming charges are different for each country, though most of Western Europe is $1.29 per minute, discounted to $0.99/min on the $4.99/month discounted international plan.
There are now also some Caribbean and Asian countries with CDMA networks — e.g. the largest Chinese cities — but it is still just a handful compared to the 250+ countries that offer GSM. GSM coverage is usually far better than CDMA in those same countries.
Cutting the cost of calling
Call charges on a European pre-paid GSM phone can be up to 80% cheaper than rental phones or roaming charges on your own account, and incoming calls are free. You visit any phone store, buy a pre-paid phone and pre-paid minutes of talk time. There are disadvantages: you can’t use your own cell phone number any more, and you will need enough local language proficiency to buy “recharge” or “Top up” cards and activate them using a telephone menu. Also, due to billing limitations, many pre-paid GSM phones will only work in the country where you purchased them. But if you are willing to put up with the extra complexity, this approach can save you a lot of money as the cost is less than a week’s rental of a GSM phone. At the end of your trip you can keep the phone for next time, recycle it, or sell it to a street urchin (just kidding – you’d sell it on eBay when you got back).
Clearly, a drawback of this kind of pre-paid is that you need to buy a phone you may never use again, unless you travel to Europe often. So why can’t you use your own GSM world phone for pre-paid service?
Pre-paid using your own GSM world phone
In the GSM system, your phone number and other identifying information are stored on a little chip: the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM). It’s a fingernail-sized smart card that slides into the back of your GSM phone under the battery (on most models). When you buy a European pre-paid GSM phone, it contains a “pre-paid SIM” issued by the carrier. If you already had a GSM world phone, you could go to Europe, take out the SIM from your US carrier, buy a pre-paid SIM (these can cost as little as 10 Euros) and put it in your own phone.
But we’re forgetting one important detail. In 99% of cases, people buy GSM phones from their carrier, such as AT&T or T-Mobile, who want you to use a SIM that they issued. Otherwise, they will lose out on those fat international roaming minutes, and so all phones that they sell are “network locked”. This ensures that only SIM cards issued by a specific carrier will work in that phone. If you put a SIM from a different carrier into a network locked GSM phone, it will refuse to work.
So you have two choices: buy an unlocked GSM phone, or have your existing phone unlocked. Buying an unlocked GSM worldphone today is very easy — Amazon.com sells a wide variety of brand new unlocked phones from all major manufacturers with a full US warranty. You can also find them on eBay from any number of merchants, though check to see if the phone is covered by a warranty.
If you already have a phone, the goods news is that all networked locked phones can be unlocked, because locking is implemented in software. Nokia phones are unlocked using a code computed from the phone’s ID. Sony Ericsson phones need a code that is dependent on the ID and the keypad lock code, but which can only be computed by connecting the phone to a computer with a special cable. There are hundreds (possibly thousands) of web sites offering phone unlocking services and equipment, and independent mobile phone stores in Europe will also do it for a small fee. Try Googling “Nokia phone unlock”, replacing Nokia with whichever company made your phone. Typical costs range from free to $20. The last time I did this a 20-minute call in Italy using a Telecom Italia Mobile pre-paid SIM was enough to break even on the cost of unlocking.
The Apple iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4
iPhones are in a class of their own when it comes to international roaming. All are quad-band world phones and can work world-wide. Unlike any other phone, in addition to being network locked to AT&T, the iPhone is also tied to your Apple iTunes account so SIM unlocking by itself isn’t enough.
Help is at hand: those friendly phone unlocking services on the Internet have figured out how to unlock the phone and break its connection with iTunes so you can slide a different SIM card in there (called “jailbreaking”). Visual Voicemail won’t work on any network other than AT&T (it relies on stuff AT&T does behind the scenes), but regular voicemail works just fine. Some unlocking services also provide after-sales service: if Apple releases an iPhone software update that invalidates their unlocking, they will unlock the new software for you at no extra charge.
Skype and other voice over the Internet options
With smartphones becoming more powerful and now offering downloadable applications, it’s possible to get free calling if your smartphone can run an app like Skype and if you are in a reasonably good WiFi hotspot (such as your hotel). Call quality depends on the WiFi network performance and Internet connection congestion at your location. If it’s busy and everyone is Skyping, you’ll get poor quality. But when it works, it’s a great alternative.
Handy tips for a phone-stress-free European trip
- When buying a “world phone” make sure that it operates on 1800MHz frequency, and ideally on both 900 & 1800MHz at a minimum. If it does not, it won’t work outside the US.
- Before you leave, call your carrier and tell them to turn on international voice and data roaming. It’s turned off by default. Even if you bought a world-phone when you signed up for service, and/or told the nice sales or activation person that’s why you went with them. It is turned off by default as an anti-fraud measure.
- Sometimes, you cannot call US 800/888/877/866 numbers from foreign countries. So find out the non-800 number for your cell phone carrier’s customer support before you leave. That goes for any other 800 numbers you may need to call when overseas (e.g. your credit card company).
- Calling 611 or any other “short code” (in industry lingo) may also not work, so don’t rely on it. Find out the international number for customer service.
- To call internationally when outside the US, you need to know the country code of the place you’re dialing. The US country code is 1 — pretty simple. France is 33, the UK is 44… there’s a whole list.
- To call internationally from a mobile phone, enter a plus sign (+), followed by the country code, followed by the number. For example, to call 415 555 1212 from Europe, you’d dial +1 415 555 1212 on your phone. Finding the plus sign on the keypad of your phone can be hard… keep looking, it is there somewhere! You might need to hold a key down to get the plus sign.
- When calling from a non-mobile phone (e.g. a payphone or hotel phone) remember that the international access code in Europe is 00, not 011. For example, to call 415 555 1212 from a payphone in Europe, dial 00 1 415 555 1212.
- When making an international call to any European phone number that begins with a zero, omit the zero — unless you are calling Italy. For example, to call the UK number 01606 54321 from France, you’d dial +44 1606 54321. + is the international prefix, 44 is the country code, then the number with the leading zero omitted. Italy is the lone exception — if you need to call there don’t drop the leading zero.
- Enjoy your trip, and don’t forget to call home!
What about e-mail, data etc?
See part 2 of this article series, which covers mobile data services.
Links
The GSM Association:A trade association that also maintains world-wide GSM coverage maps showing all carriers and frequencies used.
Search eBay for unlocked GSM world phones
Google result for “Nokia phone unlock”
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One reader tells me that when in Italy, he bought a pre-paid phone from TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) and asked the shop to set it up in English. He can then follow English voice prompts to reload the phone with Euros to make calls. So… if you want to follow the pre-paid route, try this out!
I had a horrible experience with pre-paid phones in Italy and customer care there. Ever since I’ve rented a SIM card. PicCell Wireless has been the best experience I’ve had. You can rent a phone and or SIM card. Get a local SIM for each country you go or one SIM for all of Europe. http://www.piccellwireless.com
We have traveled for several months at a time in Germany for the last two years. We used a cell phone service based in the US which requires a credit card account and calls are automatically charged to the card. The first year was fine but this year, we were hit with 2 bogus calls made within seconds of each other for $195 each and each showing a time of 60 minutes. It was not possible to make those two calls as shown on the billing. The calling service checked this out with the German provider and we were told that our phone made those calls. We did not make those calls and the phone was never out of our control. The phone service graciously paid for one of them. However, since you have already given your credit card to them, you have no recourse. Next time we will use a pre-paid SIM card that may be a little more expensive per call but will not subject us to fraudulent calls billed to our account.