A friend of mine travels quite a bit and is looking for a phone that can be used worldwide. Not something that has the same phone number anywhere, but rather something that you could purchase a SIM card in the country that you are in and have a local number while you are there. The phone would have to work in the US, Latin America and the former Soviet Union.
Any ideas?
Link I used this sites information for my sisters cell phone before she went with peace corp. It should explain what your looking for.
Have you heard about Motorola’s Iridium phone system? Look at this link:
That’s an interesting link. I looks like my friend will need a Quad band phone probably.
The problem with this is that the person wants a local number where they are and wants to pay local cell phone tariffs.
My gut was to tell them to just get a pay as you go phone in the countries where they are going to be.
Can you get a pay as you go phone which just lets you buy a SIM Card for the phone?
Yes, at least you can in some places; they are usually very cheap(since there’s no need to offset the price of the handset), sometimes cheaper than the value of the starter pack of calls you get with them.
If you want the phone that works all over the world then you would have to make sure you have a tri-band model. The Nokia 3100 will do the job ( if they still make it)
I would strongly recommend one of the Nokia 6000 series (their business range). Tri-band, solid functionality but nothing too flashy, compact, you can tap into millions of Nokia users whenever you have forgotten a charger/accessory/function, every shop and network will be familar with them.
something like the 6230 should be ideal.
Cell phone service in the U.S. and Canada operates on two particular bandwidths; cell phone service in Europe (and South America?) operates on two other particular bandwidths. The “tri-band” and “quad(-band)” phones referenced above are ones which operate on three or all four of those bandwidths, and are therefore usable in both North America and Europe.