[mmelone]

Has anyone used the World Prepaid Travel Sim Card from Ace Telecom Corp?
It's $29.95 with 10 minutes airtime and free shipping. The rates are cheap compared to most plans.

[sdetweil]

I think these are voice plans only.. no data usage (ie no mail, internet, etc)..

at least that was the way they were in Sept when I wanted to do the same.

Sam

[mmelone]

Originally Posted by sdetweil

I think these are voice plans only.. no data usage (ie no mail, internet, etc)..

at least that was the way they were in Sept when I wanted to do the same.

Sam

Sam:
I called Verizon to find out how to unlock the GSM feature and they said that only a Verizon sim card can unlock the system. What a rip off? I asked why isn't that told to you when you purchase the phone? The owner's manual makes no mention.
Mike

[crisambo]

Originally Posted by mmelone

Has anyone used the World Prepaid Travel Sim Card from Ace Telecom Corp?
It's $29.95 with 10 minutes airtime and free shipping. The rates are cheap compared to most plans.

... it's not 10 minutes, but $10.00 worth of airtime... so it can be more than 10 minutes in some places and less in other places...

Rates seem better than most Mobile Provider's international roaming plans . . . but you may get better rates by using local pre-paid SIM where you're travelling.

[penguin3107]

Originally Posted by mmelone

Sam:
I called Verizon to find out how to unlock the GSM feature and they said that only a Verizon sim card can unlock the system. What a rip off? I asked why isn't that told to you when you purchase the phone? The owner's manual makes no mention.
Mike

The owners manual makes no mention of the device not being able to make my coffee in the morning either.

Why would an owners manual indicate anything related to unlocking a GSM phone? You make it sound like this is a feature that you're somehow entitled to.
If Verizon doesn't want to provide you with an unlock code... so be it. It's not something they are required to do.

You can try some third party unlocking services if it's necessary for you to have an unlocked phone, but to my knowledge, no one has been able to successfully unlock the 8830 yet.

[sdetweil]

Originally Posted by mmelone

Sam:
I called Verizon to find out how to unlock the GSM feature and they said that only a Verizon sim card can unlock the system. What a rip off? I asked why isn't that told to you when you purchase the phone? The owner's manual makes no mention.
Mike

Yes, you would have to get the phone unlocked to use the local country SIM card. As you've found out, the phone providers aren't keen to do this.. they make more money on the phone calls then the phone itself. So, you'll probably have to find one of the unlocking services (I used gsmphonesource I think when I unlocked my 8700c last year) and pay their fee to get this done.

One other downside of the local SIM cards, is that they are 'cheap' ONLY in their localized area. and to get the best rate, you would switch SIMs to local ones as you travel.. and phone numbers too (if you want people to call you that is)..

I finally decided just to enable my AT&T international plan($20/month), $.99/min voice, unlimited data, and paid around $250 for the voice calls we used in the 3 weeks we were gone.. (it would have cost me around $200 for all the different SIM cards, and have NO data..)

so I had Web, mail IM, and SMS and voice. everywhere we went. London to Rome, back to Paris.

Sam

[brufi]

Tom,
afaik these international "unlimited" plans are mail only. Are you sure that surfing is also in? How about using the BB as modem? You have recieved your bill for the time of the trip, haven't you?
Can you linkme to the plan and option at AT&T?
Thanks
Bruno

[dc/dc]

Ugg. Why not just buy a local SIM card if you don't want to pay roaming rates?