I’m in town (NY) visiting the folks for a month and I brought my cell phone with me. When I used to live here I’d always had a contract with my phone (as did just about everyone I knew who had a cell). In Europe, it seems more typical to use prepaid SIM cards available at any grocery store and just pay as you go. I’m assuming this is also possible here but I really don’t know anything about it.
So I have my Nokia phone with me (which I’m assuming is unlocked since I use it regularly in Berlin with a prepaid SIM card). Where would I go to get such a card for use while I’m stateside? Supermarket? 7-11? Anything I should be aware of? (do rates vary widely from provider to provider?) Are SIM cards standardized such that any should work with my particular phone?
This Q&A is dated from 2007. Considering the stranglehold a few large cell companies have in America, and the recent upsurge/acceptance in prepaid cell phones (not cards) one can infer your search for a prepaid SIM card for a European phone while in America is slim to none:
There are many pre-paid phone services in the U.S. Most provide you with a sort-of subsidized phone. I was just talking to someone about T-Mobile’s service. It’s $15/month for 10 cents/minute or $50/month unlimited. Both plans have unlimited text messaging.
If you’re in New York City, go down Broadway just south of 34th street. There are a number of phone stores there that sell all sorts of pre-paid minute cards. Walmart, 7-11, Target, etc. are all in the game. Any unlocked SIM phone should be fine. Try this site: http://www.compare-prepaid-cell-phones.com/.
Anyway, you can head to the walmart electronics department for cheap phones kn prepay plans. Verizon sells some, as does sprint. But they’re all cdma, not sim. You can pick up boost (sprint) cheaper, or even AT&T or one of it’s subsidiaries.
Most of the major companies use a rebranded name for their cheaper stuff. Donnowhy.
On LI at the moment, but I should be in the city in a few days. But I’m guessing it should be similar out here.
But OK, I’m still a bit confused. Your first paragraph seems to be talking about a sort of monthly service where you are paying a monthly fee in order to then have the privilege to pay by the minute. But I think your 2nd paragraph is talking about something different and more in line with what I’m looking for.
In Berlin, for example, I have an unlocked Nokia phone. I can walk into a supermarket buy a SIM card for 10 bucks, (which will typically last me a couple of months) and then refill it online in a matter of minutes as needed. This was also the case when I was in St. Petersburg.
So, what I’m imagining is that I can walk into a 7-11, spend about 10 bucks, stick the SIM in my Nokia phone that I brought here from Germany, and be good to go while I’m here without any additional monthly fees or any need to purchase a phone (your link seems to refer to prepaid phones and not just SIM cards). Is this not the case?
Both AT&T and T-Mobile are GSM, though they might be a different frequency than Europe.
The US is tremendously backward in cellular technology in spite of inventing it. We’re caught in a mire of competing systems and carriers and “lock-in”. In Europe, you buy a phone then purchase service. Here, virtually all cell phones are sold by carriers and come with legally binding contracts that require you to remain their customer - no matter how shitty their service. Your only escape is to buy your way out of the contract.
I’ve never seen a SIM card sold in a store here, just phones.
My advice is to purchase a cheap “pre-paid” cell phone here from a company like TracFone or Virgin Mobile and use that instead. It is horribly wasteful.
Your US phone is probably either CDMA or doesn’t have the European frequency bands. The US and Canada (and Mexico I believe, but not Greenland, St Pierre et Miquelon, and a patchwork of places in the Caribbean) uses GSM on 850 MHz and 1900 MHz. Europe and most of the rest of the world uses GSM on 900 MHz and 1800 MHz.
Many if not most phones these days are “quad-band” though, so they’ll work pretty much everywhere there’s GSM.
Some new carriers in North America are using a different band for 3G, the 1700-MHz band. I think they still roam on the traditional GSM frequencies though.
Not any more.
AT&T, Sprint (I think), Rogers, Bell, and Telus all use 3G GSM. Verizon uses CDMA (and is pissed necause Apple hasn’t released a CDMA iPhone, and is watching AT&T pinch its customers).
AT&T and Rogers use 2G GSM as well. Telus and Bell were originally CDMA, but put in a 3G GSM overlay so that they could also get the iPhone, and also get the hefty roaming fees from international customers during the Olympics. (No way was Rogers going to have the iPhone and the roamers to itself.)
Rogers used to be TDMA, but migrated the last few TDMA customers to GSM and switched its TDMA network off in the summer of 2008.
I believe AT&T did similar, but there were so many colsolidations and buyouts in the US market that I am not sure. I’m fairly sure that the now AT&T was formed by a merger of SBC and the earlier AT&T that emerged from Pacific Bell. This earlier AT&T was always GSM. SBC was CDMA and got converted.
List of GSM networks in the US. Most are on GSM 850 or GSM 1900 or both. There are some 3G networks on 1700 nad 2100. AT&T and T-Mobile are there, but most in the list are smaller regional carriers. (Verizon is there also with what appears to be a regional carrier.)
Well, no sales weasels. But I gotta say, compared to what one could expect in Europe, it’s a bit of a hassle.
The sales girl was knowledgeable and provided me with what I asked for right away. 10 bucks for the card itself, and then the option to put 10, 25, 50, or 100 on it. $10 = 30 minutes. But I also noticed just as I was completing the sale that there was this other plan, 1/day = unlimited calls after 7pm, .10/minute other times. If I don’t use it in a day I pay nothing. Once I make one call after 7pm I’m charged $1 and it’s unlimited from there on. This seemed oddly cheap actually in comparison with the $10/30 min. plan. So I took it. (incidentally they did indeed take some personal info, e.g. address, DOB, etc. which contrasts with the experience in Europe for those interested).
I guess I can’t say it was too much of a hassle, but it does feel like I’m on a T-Mobil “plan”.
(unrelated to the OP: when I got home an important realization hit: my charger is rated for 230V. I believe this means, even with my EU-US adaptor, it won’t work. I’m sure I can get a cheap adaptor. So I’m almost there.).
Unless your charger can be switched to 115V, you might be better off getting another one that’s compatible with both the US and your phone (ideally, a world one that’s good everywhere). Then you just need a plug-adaptor kit, and those are cheap. I’m not sure how the robust or inexpensive the transformers/voltage converters are. Or how heavy.
Yeah, but I’m reluctant to put another $15-20 (totaling over $40) into the pursuit of having a phone for slightly less than one month. I have a friend who might actually have a phone to lend me (thus making all my efforts to date a total waste (except for the learning experience of it all)). If so, I’ll get the learning experience of how easy it is to return a prepaid SIM card and obtain a refund.
Actually, unless I misunderstand their marketing, it’s $1/day even if you use it BEFORE 7pm; that 1 is in addition to the .10/minute. Which makes it more expensive than the regular $.30/minute plans if you talk most days during the day, but cheaper if you use it only a few days a month and at night.
Actually, that would make a lot more sense. The way I understood it did seem a bit too good to be true. I don’t have it in front of me now and I’m away from homebase for the weekend, so I can’t check it right now, but in any case I’m hoping to return it when I get back.
At least with AT&T, you can switch back and forth between these 2 types of plans. AT&T prepaid minutes expire, with the timeframe depending on how much you buy at one time. $100 is good for 1 year. Smaller amounts have shorter time-frames. If you buy more minutes before the expiration, the minutes carry over. I’ve got a phone that I almost never use that has $250 or so on it - I use it for people to call in and listen to my voicemail greeting (which is actually a message), which doesn’t come out of my minutes.
You should still be able to pay cash and get a SIM card with no hassles, but you’ll need to visit a reseller. There are usually a bunch of them in shopping malls (carts in the lobby, not “real” stores).
What kind of phone? Many phones use a standard mini-USB connector and will charge (but more slowly than with a dedicated charger) from a PC’s USB port.