Re: [75attendees] Cell phones in country.

[Iljitsch van Beijnum <[e-mail]>]

On 22 jul 2009, at 11:02, Mohammad Mahloujian wrote:

> The phone used in Europe are using 900 and 1800 while in US 850 and  
> 1900 are
> used so you may check if you your phone support 900/1800

3G (UMTS) is 2100 MHz and is also incompatible with AT&T and T-Mobile  
US' versions of the same despite the fact that T-Mobile US also uses  
"2100 MHz".

(The stupid thing is that 1800 is unavailable in the US so they  
created 1900 but that overlaps with the uplink of the 2100 band so  
then they had to use a differend uplink for the 2100 band in the  US  
so the tradition of incompatible frequencies is probably going to  
continue until we reach visible light frequencies.)

But the somewhat more expensive phones will generally support at least  
three bands and four or five isn't altogether unusual. (For instance,  
the iPhone can do GSM on 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS on 850/1900/2100.)

Note that Verizon and Sprint phones are paper weights in Europe.

Also note that data roaming tends to be insanely expensive so turn it  
off unless you don't care. Making and receiving calls is also  
expensive but at least you can decide whether to make/take calls and  
keep them short. Data can get you in trouble very quickly.

Last but not least: if you have conditional forwarding (go to  
voicemail when busy/no answer) then you pay for the call to come to  
Sweden and then pay again for it to go back home to your voicemail box  
and then a third time to listen. So either turn off voicemail or use a  
non-conditional forward.