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am I right in presuming O2, Orange, Tmobile and Vodaphone will be selling the Universal.
which has the widest G3 coverage.
Which will be the cheapest.
Will the different models be the same spec with different cosmetics.
cheers
SteveW
T-mobile hasn't technically launched their 3G network (except for a laptop data card). It is due to happen in October. So no coverage or tariffs yet - but the rates they offer for their data card are here: http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/Dispatcher?menuid=phones_im_cc3g_wic
Vodafone - god knows. They seem to believe that their 3G tariffs should be a secret. Coverage is here: http://www.vodafone.co.uk/coverage.htm?zl=5&x=-1&y=-1&st=UK Postcode&ct=gprs
Orange - offer 30 minutes free video calling per month and 1000MB data per month free of charge for three months. Then you choose one of their standard data plans (currently here - http://www2.orange.co.uk/servlet/Sa...=OUKService&t=Service&cid=1096023564495&tab=2). Coverage is here: http://coverage.orange.co.uk/uk/UKCoverageSearch.htm
O2 - data tariffs are here: http://www.o2.co.uk/business/tariffs/datatariffs/0,,203,00.html Coverage - no idea.
I would imagine the hardware will be the same for all - it has been with previous HTC models. The only prices for buying the actual Universal itself have come from O2 - from free to £179.99 to £229.99.
You are forgetting the BEST 3G network in the UK.
80% coverage and always increasing, best 3G phones, best expertise, been going the longest and approprately named!
3!!
I am planning on buying one from O2, unlock it asap and then bung in a 3 sim card and happily vid call from there.
I'll be honest.
Currently, the other networks which have 3G services, Orange, Vody, T-mob and o2 are rubbish at it.
Vody have the second best coverage (about 40%) but they have seemless connections between 2.5g and 3g unlike 3 who's 2.5g service is provided by O2.
And in case you didn't know... O2 have the worst 3G coverage in the UK, they started too late and know if they don't have 80% by 2008 (i think), I am not sure whether they will loose their 3G operating license. They current;y have around 12%.
For more info on 3g go to www.3g.co.uk
would they not roam on eachothers networks ?
they do here at least with gsm
mainly because 3 have a very poor coverish and only have utms
so they have to change to gsm when ever they cant get strong enough signal
Biohead said:
You are forgetting the BEST 3G network in the UK.
80% coverage and always increasing, best 3G phones, best expertise, been going the longest and approprately named!
3!!
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Is this an ironic use of the word 'best'? 3 have the dubious distinction of being the officially most compleined about technology company of 2004. Their network stinks, their phone return rate is through the roof, their customer service (based in India) seems to believe that answering the phone is entirely optional.
As a company and a service they stink worse than 3 month old fish...!
I am planning on buying one from O2, unlock it asap and then bung in a 3 sim card and happily vid call from there.
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Tell me - how do you expect to use your Exec to surf the internet - being as 3 restrict you to a 'walled garden'...?
I'll be honest.
Currently, the other networks which have 3G services, Orange, Vody, T-mob and o2 are rubbish at it.
Vody have the second best coverage (about 40%) but they have seemless connections between 2.5g and 3g unlike 3 who's 2.5g service is provided by O2.
And in case you didn't know... O2 have the worst 3G coverage in the UK, they started too late and know if they don't have 80% by 2008 (i think), I am not sure whether they will loose their 3G operating license. They current;y have around 12%.
For more info on 3g go to www.3g.co.uk
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I don't know whether those figures are correct or not (source please?) but 3 has an incredibly patchy network full stop. Not only are you lucky to get reception at all in some areas but moving from a 3G area into a GPRS area gets you cut off virtually every time. The same applies to voice calls - move from an area with 3 coverage (so very easy to do) and the transfer to GSM cuts you off.
I'll take a smaller 3G coverage with seemless GPRS transfer every time.
Not to mention - in order to do what you suggest you need to take out a minimum contract with O2 on top of your 3 contract.
Bad, bad advice...!
I suppose I only use them now since I actually live in a reliable signal. If I want to surf the net I will use the wifi. I have access to 2 of my own network (long story) and tens more where I live.
3 do have a patchy network, but it is also the largest one.
Don't forget, that many people complained about the original hansets (the NECs) and they believe that that is how three will always be. The latest handsets don't have any problems
As for the O2 contract, I'm taking it out for the wife who will use it on her Moto V620.
O2 coverage is here: www.webmap.o2.co.uk
Last I heard was around 40% 3g coverage but that was some time ago. I use their 3g data card and its pretty darn good.
here 3 are becomming inc unpopular they are the only utms network currently but i bet very soon after the other phonecompany's here
just the utms bandwagon they will have a bigger network and 3 will roam more on their network then the other way around
I'm not saying anything for definate, but theres been a leaked memo from 3UK about 3 offering a data service as of 1st september.
But if it is the destruction of the walled garden, it's gotta be better than Vodafone £7.50 per mb for payg people.
i-mate JASJAR
Just to let you know I have ordered a i-mate JASJAR (Crap name) from expansys UK. 4 day delivery.
I went for the Vodaphone because we just moved premises this weekend and the O2 coverage is poor.
Cheers
SteveW
Haha, the hatred for 3 in this thread is funny.
Also unfounded. Network of the year two years running, guys..... if you didn't buy from e2save and other cashback dealers you'd get fine customer service from the likes of myself in your local 3point.
I am going to be headed over to Taiwan and China for the next couple of weeks so I called TMO to get an international plan to receive data. Well turns it out THERE IS NO SUCH PLAN and that each 1mb of data equals $15. Yeah I could put in a local SIM card but that won't give email and internet. And why should I, the N1 is touted as an international phone. This news was thoroughly disappointing because I will now have to rely on my crappy Blackberry for email (which is the reason I switched to Android in the first place). If there any international travelers here please let me know if there are any tricks that I should be aware of. Otherwise this is disappointing that a GSM phone can be used outside the US only if you willing to be bent over the table without any... you get the point.
i went to australia earlier this year and encountered the same problem.their international plans suck major ass.only thing i could do was pull sim card and run off wifi using any hotspots that i could find.
yea blame T-Mobile...I'm curious what other carrier in the US has a international roaming plan?
ram130 said:
yea blame T-Mobile...I'm curious what other carrier in the US has a international roaming plan?
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One of the reasons I have TMO is because of their fantastic international roaming coverage. That is why I was surprised to see that they have none for the Nexus.
As far as international roaming plans, every carrier does, just not for the Android. So yeah I'm putting that blame on TMO and Google.
I'm pretty sure every carrier has insane pricing for international roaming.
The benefit of gsm phones is that you pop a sim card for wherever you're going, not that you're carrier will support you in east bumblefuck.
All carriers are like that. That is why when the iphone first came out people were returning home with $3K phone bills. http://boingboing.net/2007/07/31/att-iphone-intl-roam.html
http://gizmodo.com/297999/idiots-keep-incurring-iphones-roaming-data-charges
The phone is an international phone but the plans aren't. Get a SIM with a data plan. When I go overseas that is what I do. Typically $100 will give you unlimited data and enough minutes and texts to last your whole trip. At the end of a trip overseas I usually have minutes left over.
Yeah, I don't see why you think you won't get internet over there from a local phone company, since they would be the one providing internet to you anyways with your T-Mobile card (They just charge T-Mobile a small amount, and T-Mobile jacks up the price to make money off you).
Just get a pre-paid sim card with internet access.
JCopernicus said:
bumblefuck.
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LoL gotta save this one to my "cursing without getting banned " stack
I'd recommend you to buy a new prepaid sim card with a data plan.
Here in India, we get a new sim card for Rs.20 (every street has ~5 shops) and 2GB data for Rs.90 and there are no stupid contracts (even if there were, we'd buy it on fake identities)... Thats the benefit of living in a developing nation
1 American Dollar = 45 Indian Rupees...
superg81 said:
i went to australia earlier this year and encountered the same problem.their international plans suck major ass.only thing i could do was pull sim card and run off wifi using any hotspots that i could find.
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faraz1992 said:
I'd recommend you to buy a new prepaid sim card with a data plan.
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+1 Same thing here if you were visiting Australia. You can buy a Telstra prepaid sim for $2 which when charged with some credit gives you exceptional coverage and good data speed. Works best on the 900mhz AT&T phone although will still work well on the 850mhz T-Mobile model.
Thanks everyone for your feedback, much appreciated.
logger said:
+1 Same thing here if you were visiting Australia. You can buy a Telstra prepaid sim for $2 which when charged with some credit gives you exceptional coverage and good data speed. Works best on the 900mhz AT&T phone although will still work well on the 850mhz T-Mobile model.
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T-Mobile = 900/AWS(which is 1700)/2100
AT&T = 850/1900/2100
Ah yes sorry. Had that rrrrrs about. Should have said "Works best on the 850mhz AT&T phone although will still work well on the 900mhz T-Mobile model."
The phone is a fine international phone. The carrier sucks. How is the phone to blame if TMO doesn't offer an international plan?
I travel from Romania to Netherlands and every time i'm in Netherlands i insert my prepaid Vodafone NL card and i activate the internet for 10 euros. 500mb - 1GB of data per month.
If i'm using more than that i buy again for another 10 euros. Is that simple. That's what you should do. A local prepaid sim with an internet service is ALWAYS going to be cheaper than an international plan from TMO.
too bad you guys in US have very bad telcos, here in malaysia we can roam data for less than USD10 unlimited data per day.
but of course not in all countries in the world.
faizalmzain said:
too bad you guys in US have very bad telcos, here in malaysia we can roam data for less than USD10 unlimited data per day.
but of course not in all countries in the world.
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$10 x 365 days = $3,650 per year. Geez you must have deep pockets. You can buy a car for that in Australia.
Do you perhaps mean $10 per month or $1 per day?
logger said:
$10 x 365 days = $3,650 per year. Geez you must have deep pockets. You can buy a car for that in Australia.
Do you perhaps mean $10 per month or $1 per day?
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He's talking about roaming... If you do that without a dataplan a couple of hundred megs would probably set you back several thousand $.
Yeah, ditto re: getting a prepaid SIM card on arrival. I haven't tried it in Asia, but in the UK, £5 will buy you 1GB of data to be used in 30 days, on Vodafone. I didn't even have to pay for the SIM card itself. Very pleased.
If you speak the language in China, just go to a China Mobile store, pick up a SIM card and put some yuan in it and you'll be good to go. I go to China every summer and have taken my G1 and my N1. You'll be stuck on edge but its enough to get you places. China Mobile stores are everywhere too, some have employees that speak english for just this purpose.
I pick up pre-paid SIM cards when I land at the airport in the airport store... Or if it's an area I'm familiar with, i.e. Australia, I just head to a local carrier's B&M once I'm in the city...
Then anyone who is half-way important... I send them an e-mail with my pre-paid SIM card's number. If it's important to text or call me, the caller can pay the Int'l charges.
Cheers,
Kermee
I'm going to spain on holiday for a couple weeks. (I know luxery )
But I do want internet when I'm there.
I want to buy a Huawei E160 USB-UMTS dongle.
And then I need a (UMTS) SIM card and an internet subscription.
Do you know company's who have prepaid cards?
I've searched, but only found old threads.
One thread of 2 years ago speeks about Movistar.es
That costed 21 euro for 4 weeks unlimited internet.
I'm also looking for that.
Is that still possible, or are there better alternatives?
Hope you can help me.
Thanx in advance!
hey! I'm from Barcelona (Spain) and have done some searching. It looks like the best option is buying a yoigo prepaid card. costs 3 euros every day you connect to the internet and you're allowed to download 100mb, then your speed is reduced to 64 kbps.
I was just looking for the same thing in the US, I'm going to cali in vacation and will be taking a nexus one to use it as gps, find hotels etc. do you know what options I have?
Just out of curiosity, where in spain are you going?
PS: here's a link http://www.yoigo.com/tarifas/internet_para_llevar.php
At&t used to for $20.00 a month.. untill the iphone came along and screwed everything up.
But i see that in europe you have to make a contract no matter if you want a phone from them or not.
In america, a plan and a contract are different things,
If you go to a cell phone company provider with your own phone, you do not need to sign a contract for 2 years to use thier service plans.
I am also going to spain (galicia) this summer, and i was going to call about that.
(And im sure you know, that At&t and T-mobile are the only GSM provider in the US)
TurboX2 said:
At&t used to for $20.00 a month.. untill the iphone came along and screwed everything up.
But i see that in europe you have to make a contract no matter if you want a phone from them or not.
In america, a plan and a contract are different things,
If you go to a cell phone company provider with your own phone, you do not need to sign a contract for 2 years to use thier service plans.
I am also going to spain (galicia) this summer, and i was going to call about that.
(And im sure you know, that At&t and T-mobile are the only GSM provider in the US)
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You don't need to make a contract in spain to get a prepaid card. Only thing you need to do is give them your ID for security purposes
josealb said:
You don't need to make a contract in spain to get a prepaid card. Only thing you need to do is give them your ID for security purposes
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that is right, it is not worth paying an 18 month contract if you are only staying here a couple of weeks, Personally I would recommend Vodafone cause they have better internet quelaity connection (at least in southern spain), and they offer prepaid sim cards and usb modems without a contract (although movistar, yoigo and orange offer them as well). The question would be, what part of spain are you traveling to and wich company has the better internet reception on that area... if you are traveling to rural areas, I would stick to the 2 major companies (Vodafone and Movistar). Hope it helps.
I'm going to Salou, about 150km south of Barcelona.
Thanx for your answers.
I hope yoigo has coverage over there.
And are there any other alternatives?
Hi,
I'm from Reus, a city near Salou (about 8km). The UMTS coverage in salou is good for all the service providers in spain.
My mobile ISP is Simyo with good prices, the only inconvenience is that don't have physical shops to buy prepaid modems/sim. My voice provider is Yoigo and they have good prices too.
My advice is that you go to a ThePhoneHouse shop, there are Vodafone, Orange and Yoigo, and they will tell you which solution was better.
You can find thephonehouse in tarragona (10km from salou) and Reus in
http://www.phonehouse.es/app/searchStore.do
Ok, I hope so that the coverage will be good.
And how are Vodafone and Orange? Are they more expensive and/or better?
ronh said:
Ok, I hope so that the coverage will be good.
And how are Vodafone and Orange? Are they more expensive and/or better?
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Vodafone will almost always give you the best coverage, at a higher price. Orange is cheaper and with a little les coverage, Simyo borrows the network from Orange so its coverage will be the same at best.
I didn't know Vodafone offered prepaid cards, if they do I'd recommend you vodafone
PS: Offtopic, Salou is cool, I've been there in vacation often but it's full of tourists, I would recommend you to move a little bit if you wanna see more of Spain than beaches, maybe driving up to Barcelona
Hello,
I just booked a gig for two weeks in Rome (Italy not Georgia) and I was looking for suggestions on the best way to use my Vibrant while outside of the US. My phone is sock, not rooted.
Should I try to unlock it with the process detailed on this forum last week and buy an Italian SIM card? If so, will data work over there (email is important)?
Should I call TMobile and let them know I'm traveling abroad and see if they have a temporary Intl plan?
Sorry for such a basic question, I've just read so many stories of people coming back from trips with their smartphones and getting a $4,000 bill from their wireless company.
Any information/suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
NSR
I travel outside the US quite a lot, and unfortunately that's about to increase significantly for me (though most of my trepidation is related to the god-awful airlines and hours of dealing with the bad joke that passes for airport security).
Bottom line: unlock it and get a SIM card that works at your destination (probably pre-paid).
It can be difficult to find these with a data plan that is any good. Plan to spend a lot of time doing a lot of research. It probably won't be cheap. Also, spend some time to understand exactly how much data you actually use, and decide whether that is likely to increase or decrease while you're traveling, and be realistic about it. In some places I've found it's cheaper and easier to rent an entire phone that has a data plan, then just yank the SIM while I'm traveling. Be sure you understand the different types of networks and bands, not all countries are playing by the same rules. (Some parts of Eastern Europe can be downright dismal.)
Under no circumstances do you want to use your phone with your US carrier's international roaming. I bought my G1 shortly before a two week trip to Tokyo, and after a great deal of time on the phone with T-Mobile and a lot of thinking about how I use my device -- and I'm probably just a mid-level data consumer -- I calculated data roaming would cost me about $550 per week. Add my wife to the mix and we were looking at a roughly $2200 bill just for frigging data. I could almost double the length of my trip for that much.
Europe isn't quite that rough, but it's still indefensibly expensive. (Not relevant to you, but worst of all, Japan flat out sucks for mobile phone use by foreign visitors and even visa holders. Which seems pretty ironic.)
International data roaming plans are one of the biggest scams the carriers have going today. "Gouging" is too polite a word for the crap they pull to shoot you a simple wireless signal. Though I gather most of the blame lies with the foreign carriers (and maybe the reverse is true when traveling in the US, I wouldn't know). In any case: Tread carefully.
^^^^ I agree.
I am in the same process right now but researching travel to UK. I definitely plan on unlocking and getting a UK sim. Some UK pay as you go plans offer 50MB/day for reasonable rates. Europe providers can say "unlimited data" but check their fair usage policies, unlimited is anything but.
When I traveled to Europe last spring, I bought a pre-paid Vodafone SIM card for like 25 Euros in Germany (with some pre-paid minutes), popped it in my unlocked phone, and went with it through Germany, Belgium, France and Eastern Europe. All incoming calls are free, all calls to Vodafone customers (all my friends in Europe are on Vodafone) are free. The data was included.
When I traveled to my home country in Eastern Europe I used local providers pre-paid SIM's - again all incoming calls are free, in carrier calls are free, I don't think I had data though.
Be careful to set your phone to not run data when roaming! I forgot to with my G1 and when in Taiwan I turned on my phone to get to the data menu and turn it off. That costs me $6 in data in 20 seconds!
I just did this for the Netherlands. Get Tmo to unlock the SIM, and get a SIM card with data. I didn't have data and I wish I did so I could have used it for maps. Calls were easy though.
Also, definitely turn off data roaming as a setting or you will get hosed.
One option for data use I found to be satisfactory was free hotspots. If your out and about frequently, many cafes, malls and pubs have fre hotspots. Make sure you turn data roaming off, however.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
MV10 said:
(Not relevant to you, but worst of all, Japan flat out sucks for mobile phone use by foreign visitors and even visa holders. Which seems pretty ironic.)
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I can't agree there. Not that this is directly related to the topic, but every phone or SIM I've rented in Japan came with %100 free incoming calls from any location (which is all I ever needed) and relatively unlimited data options.
I know this issue is partly addressed in a thread on not being able to connect to a network after unlock but I just want to share my own experience and disappointment with the G2 after going to Guatemala.
I have rooted my G2 using Visionary and am running Enomther's ROM pre-the Dec 24 update. Not using any other kernels or anything, but the phone is unlocked for use overseas with other SIMs.
Before I went to Guate I realized that I would be unable to get 3G given the bands used in Guatemala are different from what the G2 is capable of (I think Band I and IV). Fine.
However, I went down there and wanted to do some data roaming before I had a chance to get a local SIM card and I kept getting the message "SIM card not registered to this network". I tried all three carriers in Guatemala to no avail.
When I went to get a SIM card from a local carrier it took a lot of effort on their part to get my phone connected to the internet but eventually I was able to score Edge service with one of the carriers down there. Being Guatemala I don't know if this process was difficult due to the way data plans work down there (prepaid) or if there was something specific with the G2 that prevented it from connecting to the network.
But my overall question is why I was not able to roam with the G2 overseas. Clearly the phone worked fine once I put a local SIM card in but the fact that I was totally unable to roam with the G2 using my US T-Mobile SIM card was very disappointing and has me thinking of reactivating my iPhone, which has never had any issue using it overseas, including Guatemala.
Is this a G2 issue or T-Mobile?
You have to enable international roaming with T-Mobile, I discovered that during a trip to Ukraine. Once I did that my subsequent trips I was able to roam but not very well. The easiest and cheapest thing to do was to use a foreign sim for my purposes.
You have to call tmobile and they will give you the unlock code most of the time. Tell then you are going for business or something like that.
Most likely your data and calling bands will work on edge. But your 3g and wannabe 4g will not work.
Circledog said:
You have to enable international roaming with T-Mobile, I discovered that during a trip to Ukraine. Once I did that my subsequent trips I was able to roam but not very well. The easiest and cheapest thing to do was to use a foreign sim for my purposes.
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Woah, weird. I lived in ukraine for 3 years. And yes buying a ukrainian sim card will cost you about 5-10 dollars a month for a crap load of text messages. UMC is best for ukraine imo.
Completely off topic but how did you like living in Ukraine? I would love to live there for awhile. We adopted a little girl from there and then later another from Moscow, I loved Moscow but Russia was so much more expensive than Ukraine was.
Back on topic sort of. I didn't have a smart phone in Ukraine so I didnt use data, but in Moscow I was able to get 3G coverage with my G2. I had Tmobile international roaming enabled on my phone, but my sim would not register on any networks there, I had to pick up a Russian Beeline sim and then was good to go!
From what I understood about mhz bands and services. There are four total most used bands in the entire world 850 900 1800 and 1900. Us in america use two (one under a thousand and one over) and europe uses the opposite ones. So only up until tri and quad band phones started getting much cheaper (probably about 5 years ago) did phone start working in different countrys. Its only smarter honestly, then a company would only need to make on phone for the world. Then they would be losing out on multiple purchases ofc haha.
Google mobile mhz bands. I don't know everything, but I read quite a bit about this maybe 3 years ago when I bought a tri band nokia.
Ukraine, I was there for 2 years for my church. Became fluent in russian. Then went back to date a girl I met while I was there. After that she came twice for 6 month increments on a visitor visa and we got married at the end of the second. Been happily married for almost 2.5 years now.
Bring on the mail order bride jokes, I've heard them all. We r both young, planning on buying a house this year since the economy has really brought those prices down haha. Sorry for the spam! But hopefully your questions are answered.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
Thanks for the responses. I will give T-Mobile a call ahead of my next trip overseas. Just odd that a company with such wide global coverage has no international data roaming plans and makes it a pain the keester to get roaming.
They actually do have international data roaming ($15/MB). The key is that you have to have already added international roaming to your account (it's free to add). Then if you have a data plan in the US, they will allow you to have data while roaming. I think US carriers require you to actively enable international roaming instead of enabling it by default due to the potentially high number of complaints about billing charges (e.g., people using their phones internationally without being aware there will be a higher rate). This way, they can state you were properly warned since you have to contact them first.