cellphones overseas

[WannaBe_80z]

As everyone knows by now I am going to London but I am just curious about my cell phone. I have the LG enV with Verizon and was wondering the conditions of bringing and using it while over there.

[gerbick]

Verizon isn't GSM normally. If I were you, pick up an unlocked GSM phone for the cheap - quad-band more than likely if you were just going for voice, I never know what UMTS they are, 2100mhz in Eurotopia I think - and buy a SIM while there. That's one option.

Check to see if you can take your phone over there, keeping your American number and see if Verizon has a partnership with somebody other there... in Germany, it would be Vodafone, iirc. You might be able to maintain it all, but your bill(s) will be astronomical if you use it like you do while in the US. That's option two.

You could buy a cheapy pay as you go type of phone, fill it up as you need... that's option three.

There's a ton of others... I just know that I'm on AT&T now and my phone is quad-band with wifi so when I go overseas, I tend to use it only for calls with partners of AT&T and connect to some wifi for e-mail/data and turn off roaming data.

In Asian countries, I carry my trusty Motorola F3 and slap in a SIM and nobody wants to steal that cheap thing.

[WannaBe_80z]

I was just going to be using it for some voice calling back home but mostly txting to keep in touch with people I am there with while roaming the cities etc. Thanks for the input I guess when I go in next week I will be picking their brains but sadly you probably just told me more then they will.

[robbmcaulay]

You can get a cheap PAYG phone over here for £20 ($40)

[asheep_uk]

If you're staying for anything longer than a few weeks, go to the Carphone Warehouse and they'll sort you out with a cheap-ass pay-as-you-go phone. There's a few for £4.50 ($9).

[WannaBe_80z]

Yeah I will be there for 5 months.

[asheep_uk]

Here's a tip for you - in Britain we love our postcodes. They are specific down to about 10-15 houses. So if you take the post code of the hostel/hotel/whatever you're staying in and tap it into the 'Find a store' page on websites, it'll be able to tell you the nearest store.

For example, Piccadilly Backpackers has a postcode of W1F 7BR, so you can use that to find the nearest place.

The first part of the postcode also tells you where something is.



So the postcode I mentioned above is W1, so you know it'll be in that little W1 block.