Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 07:46:51 -0500 From: "Michael Berlant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [LIB] US cellphones
Hello, Raymond, The simple answer is, "Yes, you can carry your new T68i to the US and use it." Unfortunately, the answer is never so simple. While the phone itself will work fine in 1900MHz mode in much of the US and Canada (look at T-Mobile's map for a pretty good idea of the footprint), you won't be able to use it with a local SIM if your Oz carrier has the phone SIMLocked. Since your carrier is subsidising the phone they sell you, most likely they will lock the phone to only work with their own SIM for the duration of the contract. You might be able to convince them that you need the SIMLock removed early by telling them that you will be travelling to a country that doesn't have a roaming agreement with them. It's up to you to find a country that fits that bill. If you carry your locked phone to the US, you can expect to pay as much as A$2.00 per minute for every call made and received - including local US calls. Once you have made sure that your phone is 1900MHz capable and unlocked, you can pack your bags and come on over. In the US, GSM is still pretty new and there is generally only one carrier per market, although they generally have fee-free roaming agreements with each other. The two biggest carriers are Cingular, if you are on the West Coast, and T-Mobile in most of the rest of the US. Both carriers have prepaid schemes available. Having said all of that about GSM, you should know that the US manufacturers successfully petitioned the US government about 10 years ago to grant bandwidth to their TDMA and CDMA schemes, rather than GSM, because of their "technological superiority". That leaves us with only AT&T Wireless still using TDMA (and exiting quickly), and Verizon Wireless and Sprint (and most others) using CDMA. Even though the CDMA footprint is better than GSM, if you're sticking to the major markets here you'll probably save money overall by sticking with your GSM equipment investment. Whatever you choose, good luck. Michael ----- Original Message ----- From: "Raymond" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Libretto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 7:23 AM Subject: [LIB] US cellphones > Hi all! > > Whilst we're on the subject of cellphones (I guess this is still on-topic > given the amount of time my Libretto spends talking on it instead of me!), > perhaps those of you in the US can give me some advice. I'm most probably > going to be in the US in about a year or so (yea I'm thinking ahead here) > and I know virtually nothing about the US cellphone market (apart from what > one can gather by browsing the major carriers' websites for about 2 hours > and getting lost in the fineprint) ... generally, is it better value for > money (on the low-end plans) to have your own cellphone then just pay the > carrier for service or is it better value buying a subsidized cellphone > with the carrier? > > I ask as my cellphone contract in Australia is up for renewal ... I'm sorta > torn between buying new carrier-subsidized US compatible cellphone > (SonyEricsson T68i) here or sticking with my current (non-US compatible) > cellphone for a year then buying one from a carrier in the US in a years > time ... > > The deal I'm eyeing here is pretty decent, at least by Oz standards ... > $30AUD($15USD) a month over 2 years buys a SonyEricsson T68i (bluetooth > compatible ... which I might well pair up with a bluetooth card for my > Libby ... anyone tried doing such a thing and have any experiences with > it?) with $30AUD of 'free credits' per month (which works out to be about > 40 free voice minutes or 1.4 meg of GPRS traffic) plus free-calling options > (under one option, any calls after 9pm to other mobiles nationwide are > completely free for instance). How does this compare in real terms with > similar plans in the US? ************************************************************** http://libretto.basiclink.com - Libretto mailing list http://www.silverace.com/libretto/ - Archives -------TO UNSUBSCRIBE------- Reply to any of the list messages. The reply mail should be addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Then replace any text on the message's subject line: cmd:unsubscribe --------TO UNSUBSCRIBE DIGEST------ Do above but with this on subject line: cmd:unsubscribe digest **************************************************************
