<p>Ds will be spending next year studying in England. We are totally confused as to what to do for a phone.</p>
<p>We expect him to stay in touch with us by Skype, but we do want him to have a phone there for local calls and also so he can call us in case of an emergency and/or no internet. If the phone charges $1 per minute to talk to the US, that's fine -- we expect the phone to be used mostly for local calls, with hopefully none or maybe one or two emergency phone calls during the entire year. </p>
<p>He doesn't have an iPhone (I've heard they can work internationally) and isn't interested in texting capabilities.</p>
<p>Should he plan on just buying a phone once he gets to England?</p>
<p>Is there some other option that would be easier than trying to locate a phone within the first few days of landing in a foreign country?</p>
<p>We’re looking for the same answers for our daughter spending the fall semester in London. Definitely planning on heavy use of Skype. I have been told that purchasing a phone over there is the best option, but I just can’t believe there isn’t a better way, outside of an iPhone.</p>
<p>Buying a phone is extremely easy. No need to sign a contract, just get a prepay phone for 20 or 30 quid including some credit. Loads of shops will sell them in any town centre – it really would be the easiest thing in the world.</p>
<p>Considering the ages of your kids, don’t you think you might trust them enough to find a store and make a small purchase in a town centre? Hardly a thrilling international adventure, especially in an English-speaking country.</p>
<p>Thanks for info. I haven’t ever dealt with prepaid phones and we’re trying to keep the expense down. It’s certainly not about trust-we’re trusting her to live on her own in another country for 3 months, so that’s not the issue.</p>
<p>You can buy a pay as you go cell phone (they call them mobile phones in England) very cheaply in England. I have a very basic Nokia one (nokia 1661) which I use when I visit my Mum and brother - it costs about 5 pounds ($7-8) from carphonewarehouse. </p>
<p>Then there are lots of options for what sim card to buy - some of which include very good prices for international phonecalls. The one I have I can call home to the US for about 7p (11-12 cents) a minute - on one phone I have unlimited texts and on another I get free international minutes when I top up (I actually bought the phones from an American friend whose daughter had done a study abroad semester in London - before that I had never realised how cheap UK mobile phones could be - when I went over a couple of years back when my Mum was very hospital I ran up $1000 on my US cell phone calling home to talk to my husband!!!).</p>
<p>Also UK mobiles do not charge you minutes for incoming calls so if you have a good plan here then calling their mobile will not cost them.</p>
<p>Oh and you can “top up” the phones at many newsagents and other stores.</p>
<p>Google carphonewarehouse and click on “pay as you go” on the mobile phone dropdown menu for a list of the available phones.</p>
<p>ANd the sim card I have that has the option for a free international phone calls bonus with top up is talkmobile (you can google that as well). You can choose between the international calls, texts, free UK minutes.</p>
<p>Thank you so much, swimcatsmom. Your post is extremely helpful! I think we’ll plan on him buying one over there. Your post made me much more confident that that is the way to go.</p>
<p>By the way lots of cell phones work internationally - not just iphones. You just have to make sure it is a quad band phone which many phones are. </p>
<p>But it is far cheaper to get a phone over there as the per minute rates to uses an American cell phone overseas are exorbitant. If he is going to be in London then he will have no problem finding a carphonewarehouse. If not then most big towns will have somewhere to buy a mobile phone - some big supermarkets such as Tesco even sell them. The other thing, if you know the address he will be living at, is you could order a phone online and have it waiting for him.</p>
<p>The nokia I have is not locked like the expensive cell phone I have here so it is easy to buy and install a different sim card if he finds one that matches his needs better.</p>
<p>We just bought an unlocked phone that you could insert a SIM card into from various countries. D2 used it for a trip this summer in the US, D1 and I will use it during some international travel later this month, and D1 will use it for study abroard this fall. It is not really easy to get one in a store, though. Best Buy does not carry them (it is much more profitable for them to get you linked up with a carrier while you are in the store!). We ended up ordering the phone online. We got the US SIM card for D2 online; the US card also can be used for international calls, just at a higher rate, so we will use it (just to call hotels, etc.) during our travels. Then we will buy a country-specific SIM card when D1 gets to the country she is going to.</p>
<p>If you buy an unlocked phone online, I would suggest you read online reviews for them pretty carefully, especially if your kid is specific about the features they want (eg, qwerty keyboard). You do need to research which GSM bands are used in the country it will be used in (easy internet search). If your kid doesn’t text, you should be able to get an unlocked phone pretty cheaply (that qwerty keyboard D1 wanted pushed us to a more expensive model).</p>
<p>Intparent, I wonder if you would mind sharing the online source from which you purchased your phone? I would be grateful since I could start there–our requirements are similar–and I don’t have much time until departure. Thank you so much.</p>
<p>Too funny, Cockatiel! I come to CC for the first time in ages to find out about cell phones and other things for my ds’s year at Oxford this year and find you’ve asked the same thing! :-)</p>
<p>Most verizon phones do not work overseas. Ditto Sprint. </p>
<p>T Mobile and ATT do, for the most part, but you should check the carrier website for country specific issues.</p>
<p>Even if you have a compatible phone, it must be provisioned (activate) for use abroad. You need to contact the carrier for this.</p>
<p>International roaming (that’s what they call this is very expensive, but worth it for backup, IMHO. A call to the UK will cost the recipient, using a US phone roaming, about $1.35 per minute.</p>
<p>Local phones are a very good deal. carphone warehouse has a huge selection with lots of interesting plans. They are on many high streets, and can activate immediately.</p>
<p>When you call from the Us to a UK cell phone, be aware of the cell phone charge to you the caller. In Europe, calling party pays about .30 per minute. No penny calling to cell phones, only land lines. </p>
<p>Finally, overseas rates from US cell phones are outrageous, even with discounted plans. a better option is Skype to Go, I found. Not free, but much cheaper, and fast. They give you a US number to call which automatically connects to the UK number.</p>
<p>Google Voice is now available in the UK, you set it up by requesting a phone # that would be local to your home in the US. Then you can place calls from that number via your computer to any phones in the US, (landlines or mobile phones) for free. My son is also in London for study abroad for the year and we’ve used this already…I can return his calls to that Google voice number and leave voicemail messages all for free.</p>
<p>also you can unlock the cell phone you have and then simply get a sim card, they have month to month plans (no contract) that include calls/text/internet based on your usage.</p>
<p>Really easy getting a phone in Europe. No monthly plans, you just buy the phone and top it up when ever you run low. My daughter had an Orange phone while there and it worked quite well. The best thing is even if the phone is out of credit, you can still call. There are no charges for received calls.</p>
<p>There are no charges to the receiving party for received calls. The calling party pays. </p>
<p>Our experience with Google Voice has been OK but not great. When D calls, there has been an annoying clicking in the background, but the price is right. :)</p>
<p>Keep in mind that calling a UK cell phone from the US through Google Voice is not free. It is $.18 per minute. <a href=“Calling Rates”>Calling Rates;
<p>Having an unlocked phone (most you buy in UK are unlocked) and buying local SIM cards in other countries can be a good idea with one big caveat: The phone number will change. Unless your student is very good about notifying you what number to call (or otherwise updating google voice or whatever approach is being used) you will have no way to contact them until they give you the new number. </p>
<p>When D arrived in England, she was able to pick up a pay-as-you-go phone from Carphone Warehouse that has a plan which only charges 2 cents a minute for calls to the US. It’s been nice to have several longish calls as she gets adjusted to city life, apartment life, English life…</p>
<p>First, I would look to see if your phone uses a SIM card just about every network except for Verizon uses them. You can probably buy a new SIM card when you arrive and replace your existing card, allowing you to keep your old phone. </p>
<p>If you end up having to buy a new phone, here’s what you do. Go to a store specializing in cell phones. Stores in the UK include The Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U. My advice, go for the cheapest phone you can find. Honestly, you will probably only need it for a semester (or longer if youre lucky), so as long as you can call and text it will be fine. I found one for 10 pounds, or about $17, and it hasnt given me any problems yet. Next, youll need a network. The most popular UK networks are O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone. Just like in the US, you can either have a pay-as-you-go plan, or a monthly plan. Be sure to weigh out the cost both ways, and remember that if you want to have a monthly plan, you will more than likely need a UK bank account.</p>
<p>REALLY look at the different aspects of each plan. My friends and I that came from the same university here in the States all got a network Lebara that allowed us to make free calls and texts to each other really convenient since we communicate with each other the most. Not to mention international calls are only about 6 cents a minute.</p>
<p>If you have a phone with a SIM card (not Verizon or Sprint which are CDMA) and have had the phone/account for a while, most carriers, if you call them and tell them your child is going overseas for study, will give you the code to unlock your phone. Once unlocked it is freed from that carrrier only and your child can simply buy a SIM card from a local carrier when he or she arrives and pop it in to the phone in place of the US SIM card. Then in effect they have a local phone charged at local rates. They can top off the card for more calls easily and if they have a local bank account can often do it with an ATM card.</p>
<p>While unlocking a US phone and swapping sim cards is great in theory, it is difficult in practice.</p>
<p>Ever lose a SIM card? Ever try to replace one? Hint: It costs. It takes time. Do you want your kid flying back to the US, only to find they lost the SIM card they took out a few months ago? (you ever see how tiny they are?).</p>
<p>Save yourself some grief. Spend the twenty bucks on a new phone over there. </p>
<p>Also consider that GSM phones (i.e. the ones used by ATT and T Mobile in the US) are not all the same. You can find dual, tri and quad band phones in the US. The dual band don’t work well overseas if at all. </p>
<p>We’re in our third year of dealing with UK phone issues. Even visited Car Phone Warehouse in Oxford last June with daughter. You’d be amazed at the number of plans, phones and low prices over there. They have a much more competitive market than in the US, no surprise.</p>
<p>*need help regarding “pay as you go phones.” Please excuse some of my foolish questions but we have never used a Sims card. We plan to buy a phone in England and are confused on buying the cards. Do you need more than one card for calling locally and another for international? If you need different cards, do we need more than one telephone or can you change it back and forth. You have three telephones so I am really confused in regards to how many I need. Thank you for any help you can give us. Our granddaughter will be in Harlaxton next semester.</p>
<p>Many of the prepaid plans in the UK have reasonably affordable dialing to the US.</p>
<p>Also, don’t confuse a SIM card with a pre-paid phone card. The latter are just like in the US, where you go to 7-11 (or something similar in the UK!) and buy a card that basically tells you to call a phone number, enter a code, then dial to your destination.</p>
<p>SIM, which stands for Service Identity Module, is a little piece of electronics that interfaces with the phone and tells the phone’s network who you are (who your phone is, really) including the phone number. The data regarding everything else, including minutes, billing, pre-paid or not exists on a computer somewhere. </p>
<p>If you buy a new phone, it would normally come with the SIM already installed (installed when you buy it, since most phones, even in the UK, are sold with a plan.)</p>