I will be in the UK in a few weeks. I have a US cell phone that has international roaming. Will it behave like a UK phone while I am in the UK? Do I have to dial the UK country code (44) to make a call in the UK? And what about my friends who will be there with their US cell phone? Do I call them like it’s a US to US phone?
I’m assuming it’s a GSM phone, otherwise it won’t work in the UK at all.
It will behave like a US phone and you will need to dial the UK country code to call a UK number. If you want to call other US cellphones that are physically located in the USA, you would dial as you normally do. Anyone in the US who wishes to call you while you’re in the UK would just dial normally as well.
I’m not sure about roaming charges fees in America, but if I took my Australian sim card to the UK it would incur very high fees. Have you checked out the option of buying a sim in the UK that had a GB or two of data and then using a App such as REBTEL to make calls back to the US for around one cent per minute? You could pass on the new phone number to anyone that needed it back home. They have T-Mobile over there which do great deals. It’s also handy to use UK sims as you can use Google maps to find your way around, check for local restaurants etc, plus browse the internet. The fee for 1gb of data is about $15 per month.
Check with your provider. They should be able to answer these questions and should be able to give details based on your phone’s model.
My US phone works like a UK phone in the UK, as in I need to dial the US country code to call the US. I can use it as a UK phone while dialing in the UK, though anybody who wants to dial to my phone would treat it as a US phone.
Also, depending on your data plan (if international is covered at all), skype or a similar VoIP feature may end up being cheaper. And your provider might have a deal on cheaper service than the regular international roaming your plan already comes with.