Mobile phones

[jimbol1966]

Can anybody tell me if i buy a mobile from America will it work in the uk.

Thanks

 

[mf1973]

Its been my experience that Europe and Asia always get the latest phones before the US; additionally, they are usually much cheaper. In the US, the phones are usually purchased with a contract in order to subsidize the price (and locked~read below), however, you can buy phones (may be a bit expensive) without the service contract.

A GSM phone from the US would work in the UK, as long as its triband or quadband. (Tri will work, but Quad will work much better.) The bottom line is that you want a phone that uses the 900 and 1800 bands that are prevalant in UK/Europe.

If you do buy a US phone (with or without a service contract), you will most likely need to have it "unlocked" in order to use a UK or European based SIM card/phone #. Unlocking usually cost anywhere from $10 - $30 USD.

The following are a list of major GSM carriers in the US, check their websites, you can usually buy a phone from one of their stores w/o service.

www.attwireless.com
www.tmobile.com
www.cingular.com

Hope this helps.

 

[Olaf]

The previous poster is right. Our phones are tied with the contracts. You can check out the phones that are available over here--Sprint and Verizon are the largest carriers.

http://www.sprintpcs.com/
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/index.jsp