International Calls

[savageskaterkid]

On December 17th I'm leaving for Buenos Aires, Argentina and will be gone for 2 weeks. And was wondering if my phone will work there. I have an Env2, and an outlet adapter for there power requirments to charge my phone. I plan to bring it with me anyway as I have my spanish translator on my phone, and am gonna need that. I'm not too worried about making calls as it would probably be crazy expensive, but does anybody who does alot of internationaly traveling know if texting would work?

 

On Verizons site it says there is interenational texting, but thats me texting someone in another country and its like 25 cents a text, but idk if this same rule applies to me being in another country with my current US issue phone?

[Challenger]

My sister texted her boyfriend from Nigeria and it was a huge bill. My parents never told me what it cost her...

 

When Ive talked to my dad in Nigeria from the US he was on a nigerian cell phone. They use phone cards there, not sure if you could use those on your phone.

[kiwi303]

there are 2 main international standards for mobile networks, GSM and CDMA your provider will be using one of those, and there will most likely be a provider using the same protocol where you are going. most of the big mobile companies have plenty of overseas contracts with providers using the same protocol to enable their users to "rent" usage of an overseas providers system.

 

check your phone settings and enable "roaming" and you should be fine. I know my cousins phone from australia worked in the UK, Sweden, France, Switzerland the Ukraine and Poland, as well as Iceland. If an itsy bitsy teleco from a country with 12 mil people can roam that far, think of the reach a major company from a country with 250 mil inhabitants will have

[Flexicoker]

talk to your carrier ASAP. My girlfriend is in Ecuador right now, and she had to get an older phone that would work there, I'm not sure on the details, but she could not use her normal phone. If she had talked to them far enough in advance, they apparently have international phones they'll give you. When she calls me she uses a calling card (expensive) or goes to an internet/phone cafe (cheap). We text occasionally, but it is expensive (not sure the actually amount, but its enough to make my parents tell me to stop =) )

[savageskaterkid]

I believe mine is a CDMA phone, I'm pretty sure thats all that verizon uses, and they are looking towards GSM phones, but I don't believe they have yet.

[psdenno]

Here's a thought.... Call Verizon Customer Service and explain what you'd like to be able to do. They'll tell you service availability and rates.

Dennis

[savageskaterkid]

Here's a thought.... Call Verizon Customer Service and explain what you'd like to be able to do. They'll tell you service availability and rates.

Dennis

 

Just called them, and they have NO service or extended network there

[kiwi303]

go to the Argentinian ebay equivalent (google will help) and buy a used cheap prepay phone, and use that

[Tony D]

Verizon is SCREWED overseas! The don't have a 'network' there, but it's irrelevant, unless you have a VERIZON WORLDPHONE you can't use your phone outside the USA. Verizon SUCKS for overseas operation, it's expensive, you have to use their special phone with a GSM chip that ONLY works overseas on their partner networks, and when there is no CDMA service in the USA, you CAN'T use the resident GSM SIM chip in your worldphone to access the FULL STRENGTH GSM Signal you can find here in the USA...

I know, I had their worldphone (I had three, actually, the service was FRCED upon me!). If you want that functionality, there are vendors on E-Bay that can sell you a Verizon CDMA/GSM Worldphone for a lot more reasonably priced setup than the $400+ they wanted for a four year old (but new in the box) Samsung they sold me (which I still have in my pouch as it contains all sorts of info...)

 

If you want worldwide capability, go GSM with AT&T or Cingular. Their world-capable phones start at $19, and the service for overseas is MUCH cheaper than Verizon. Skype and Vonage is also an alternative.

 

And as NZ said, you can walk into as many different celphone outfits and simply buy a months service and phone for under $50US equivalent. Keep the phone, likely it's unlocked. Then, the next country you go to, you simply buy the local SIM chip, stick it in your phone, and away you go. I would stick local SIMS into my old AT&T and Cingular Phones and they worked fine. I could stick my AT&T SIM into local phones and it worked fine. GSM is wonderful in that regard. Most of the world is on GSM, CDMA is Verizon, Korea, and some other strange places---about 6 countries as I recall where GSM didn't reliably work. I know in Venezuela I could use my AT&T GSM phone in Caracas and Maricaibo, but outside the cities it went to 'no signal' and I later found out that rural areas there were CDMA due to it's ability to handle more signals over a greater dispersed repeater network (thank you JeffP for that explanation!!!)

 

This is not an option with your Verizon phone. I works only with what they give you for it...

 

Did I mention Verizon Phones SUCK internationally...

 

I saw this two days ago, but just now got back to it, sorry! I have an AT&T GSM phone with their international service once again with this new company, and have recently returned from 65 days 'away'... I started in Spain, went to Morocco, Nigeria, Indonesia, and back home. I had a signal everywhere I went and could make calls out. Some places easier than others, but I could call. Functionality of some features was compromised, my voicemail may not notify me of a message for three days, but you learn workarounds. I am much happier with a GSM phone than I EVER was on "Verizon's Network"---especially at the prices they charged for the services overseas. I'm talking 5X the cost in some cases. I rarely had a bill over $400 a month with AT&T, but with Verizon I was getting hit with close to $2000 a month when travelling abroad. Yeah, you read it right.

 

Did I mention Verizon SUCKS overseas?

[AK-Z]

Voip

[kiwi303]

Voip

 

needs a computer with speakers, microphone and a reasonable up/down bandwith, or a voip phone hooked up to a computer. a little hard to use sitting at a cafe and wanting to send a txt to someone

[savageskaterkid]

Verizon has a global rental program, its 2.99 a minute, and $.65 for outgoing text, incomming is free though. I considered this, but I think I may just stick to one of my parents laptops and just IM or email

[Tony D]

For the rental fees, and price of the air time, you can buy a cheap local phone and use it. Seriously.

Globalphoneworks offers the same service.

 

I use Skype for the phone calls home that don't go on my business line. 2 cents a minute... And I can call internationally in the USA through my Skype 'dial in' feature from any phone using a local number. I can actually call from my home phone (which has no long distance carrier) via local phone number to Amsterdam for cheaper than my old intra-state charges!

[savageskaterkid]

After plenty of confusion getting on both my flights to argentina, I am finally here. They canceled my initial flight to miami, so I had to fly to dallas to goto argentina, my ticket was purchased at a diffrent time from my parents so when we had to reshedule flights for yesterday, I had to fly alone where the rest of my family flew together. Then in dallas they said that I had no ticket booked for argentina, but the rest of my family did. They gave me a standby pass and I eventually got on, and now I reside in Buenos Aires, Argentina!!!

 

Does anybody have any info on importing real cuban cigars? I remember reading that it was ok as long as it wasn't from cuba, now it seems as though the president changed that policy so absolutly NO cuban cigars could come in. Anybody have any input? My boss likes cigars and thought I'd bring some back seeing as they can be quite hard to come by, and here they seem to be quite plentiful.

[kiwi303]

Does anybody have any info on importing real cuban cigars? I remember reading that it was ok as long as it wasn't from cuba, now it seems as though the president changed that policy so absolutly NO cuban cigars could come in. Anybody have any input? My boss likes cigars and thought I'd bring some back seeing as they can be quite hard to come by, and here they seem to be quite plentiful.

 

 

Buy some el cheapo 10c bolivian cigars and pull the paper rings off them, pull the rings off the cubans and post the cuban packaging and rings to your home address in the states, put the el cheapo rings on the cubans and stick them in the el cheapo packaging. give the cheap cigars away to the street beggers and take the cubans home declared as el cheapos, open your mail and swap the packaging when you are at home and give the cubans to your boss.

 

problem solved, now if you will excuse me, I think some US Customs and excise chaps are members on here so I'll just go and make sure I can't be extradited for fomenting revlution with a Cuban Cigar Party, the Boston Tea Party was enough for you chaps.