Phones in the US?

georgeous

I'm moving to the states in a few days for work, and I need to get a phone there. Anyone have any experience? What Networks etc? I'll need to buy an actual phone, and not just the sim, as I need to leave my number here to be functional for old work.

By the by, I only want to go pre-pay/pay as you go/credit etc as there's a chance I may be provided with a work phone, but will need a phone for finding a place to live before starting work.

Any input gratefully received!

towel401

they have a completely different attitude to phones over there prepaid is for old people and young kids who cant control their spending. so if you walk into a shop will *really* try to get you to take out a contract because the person selling it to you works on commision. your best bet would be ebay or an online shop that sells sim free phones, get something you can take back with you

you can buy a prepaid AT&T sim for $35 in a shop. at&t and t-mobile are the only real GSM networks over there, you can get a t-mobile sim but their coverage isn't that great. of course you might be able to get cheaper sims online. even try to pick up an unlocked quad band phone over here in the few days it will save you some trouble.

stay away from sprint, verizon, nextel, tracphone they all use oddball networks and the phones won't work over here or anywhere else. if you walk into a shop they will most likely try to sell you all sorts of ****e you don't really want, they big into the sales technique there. prepaid sims are expensive because they don't want people to buy them.

dingding

I use these, you get a dublin phone no and you can use it with an existing unlocked quad band phone.

www.maxroam.com

Call charges while roaming in the US.

They are pre-pay and you can top up from the phone or the website.




Incoming Call €0.38
Outgoing Call To Cellular In Ireland €0.60
Outgoing Call To Landline In Ireland €0.50
Call To a Local Landline In USA €0.46
Call To a Local Cellular Phone In USA €0.46
Sending an SMS From USA €0.21
Calling Your Voice Mail €0.47

You can also text from their site for 5c and any replys go to your phone for free.

If you need a US number you can get one applied to the sim for a monthly fee.

Also might be worth thinking of a sip provider like blueface and a wifi phone.

mathew

my brother went over in september for a year. I spent ages trying to work out stuff on websites, he was in and out of loads of shops.
The best we found network we found was t-mobile. The best place to buy one of their phones with a sim was to in wall mart (or similar)
The phone is fairly basic, but it does the job and was very cheap..
Tariffs over there are quite different
They charge for both sending and receiving texts.
All the states are divided into areas, in NY theres Kingston, Albany etc. Each area has an area code, and all phones in that area use that area code(both landline and mobile) theres no such thing as network codes (087 etc)
Most networks and tariffs count anywhere out of area as roaming.
So calling somewhere out of area or going out of area will cost more..
I'm not sure if there is a higher cost again for out of state.. I'll check with my brother..
Havnt looked in to roaming to other countries yet..

georgeous

Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated! Interesting to hear about how it works over there in comparison.

Think I'm just going to buy a cheap-a$$ PAYG phone on AT&T or T-Mobile - chances are I will only be using it for a week or two anyway before I (hopefully!) get a company phone.

Thanks again guys, really appreicate you sharing your experiences.

mathew

Your best bet is to pop in to Wall Mart or something and see what you can get there so.

Best of luck with it all..

Ah-Watch

When I was in America in June AT&T definatly had the best coverage-yes I was roaming and had one vodafone phone roaming on AT&T and a Meteor one on T Mobile and AT&T was far superior(then again could depend on where your going to be) I'd bring your own Irish number with you and pop a few €'s in befire you go, I used Cabbage to send texts home which only cost 1c. That was you can text home for 1c and they text you for free-just top up your phone online once every 6 months, very handy! Best of Luck I'm mad jealous of you going!:D

georgeous

Just to let you guys/people looking in the future know...

So I got an AT&T 'Go Phone' (PAYG) - Phone is a crappy Nokia ($65) which I thought would be fine as I've used really cheap Nokias (£20 cheap!) in the UK before (Virgin Mobile PAYG) - but the quality is terrible! I can barely hear people speak and can't seem to turn up the speaker either! So unless I'm in a very quiet place - which is difficult as I'm in New York! - my phone call abilities are not great!

So, in conclusion, if you go PAYG in the states - either take your decent Irish phone with you and have it unlocked and ready, or you'll need to spend nearer $100 for a decent-ish phone.

Thanks again for your replies and advice!

G

Ah-Watch

Did you bring your Irish Mobile with you? That might be better if you still have it...

georgeous

Ah-Watch wrote: »

Did you bring your Irish Mobile with you? That might be better if you still have it...

I wish I could have, but I needed to leave the number and phone at home - it was a loaner as I wasn't expecting to be in Ireland too long.

Live and learn!