Friday, August 7, 2009

How do I know if my Cell phone will work in italy


How do I know if my Cell phone will work in italy?
i am going to italy in a month and I have an unlocked phone, but How do I know if it will work in Italy?
Cell Phones & Plans - 4 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Call you cell phone company, tell them the area and they should know if it's gsm,cdma,tdma,ect. Then they will tell if your cell is compatible and if not sometimes you can rent one for your Carrier (quad mode) also change to a international plan this will save you on some roaming fees. If you have verizon this info is on the web site.
2 :
You can call your phone company to see if your phone is able to make calls. More recent phones are able to make the calls, but calling your phone company may help you solve the problem more. I have cingular, and I know I can ask questions about those kinds of things over the internet, through contacting customer service or something.
3 :
Assuming you have a GSM phone, you should check the bands that your phone supports, and insure that these bands cover those used in Italy. Italian cellular phone companies (notably, Vodafone and Telecom Italia) appear to use the 900 and 1800 bands, and for 3G service 2100. The user's manual for your phone should tell you what bands it covers. It might be easier to call your US cellular service provider and ask. You may also need to do this to have them enable service outside the US. If you plan to use your phone for calling within Italy (rather than for international calls to and from the US), it would be a lot cheaper to buy a GSM card in Italy. This will give you an Italy-based phone number, and remove the huge roaming charges you'd pay to your US providers. See http://www.lifeinitaly.com/travel/cell-phone-in-italy.asp for more detail.
4 :
check the Italia GSM frequency. Here is a page on WW GSM frequency: http://www.chinacellworld.com/worldgsm.shtml If you have a Quad-phone, then you are fine. Tri-band is kind of tricky, so you should really check your phone frequency and then see if that matches