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LLL, my sister and her partner have set off today for San Francisco to start a three week fly drive holiday visiting all the tourist attractions of California and ending up in Vegas.
Mrs G asked me if I would be able to text her, and vice versa, her to me. As I recall, the cellphone networks in the US operate on a different system that is not compatible with European cellphones. Is this still the case or have the systems been changed to accommodate worldwide systems???
Thanks, Grandad
@ Grandad - I really don't know. There seem to be so many different plans that do different things. I essentially had 2 cell phones. My ATT phone was only good for use IN the USA (wouldn't work in Canada) and I had to traditionally dial + PAY for any long distance calls or texts I made. I had this plan for quite a few years but it was expensive and I hardly used it so finally cancelled it.
I bought a cheap VIRGIN phone and their pay as you go phone but I could then text worldwide and did text my gf in the UK, my friends in Trinidad & Dominica etc. however you have to constantly buy cards and load your phone (oh - constantly to me was every 3 months but that got to be a pain)
Then I bought a TRAC phone which gives great minutes in the USA for talking which I hardly do and I believe I've now accumulated something like 3000+ minutes. This is the phone and plan I use when I go to the USA now as now I do almost all my talking via email and SKYPE.
Sorry I can't be of much more help but I don't really understand that much re: cell phones. I'd suggest buying a cheap phone IN the USA and a cheap $20 card that give you International calling abilities (like my Virgin phone and plan did). If they text you once or you text them once and make the connection then all you both have to do is reply to each other to stay in touch.
I can say that my Canadian cell doesn't work in the USA and I can also say my US cell doesn't work in Canada and the calling ability stops EXACTLY at the border too.
Thanks for that LLL. I thought it was probably still complicated and your post confirms that. In Europe, as you go from country to country you get a message from the local service that will handle you calls and texts while in their area. This changes as you move around but I find that I have no problems in Europe and further afield in Africa, the Middle East etc.
I will wait until the weekend for them to get settled and then text and see if I get a response.
Interestingly I take my ATT phone on my travels to Trinidad/Canada/Mexico etc. It gives me a message telling me which country I'm in but that message also contains the info that there is NO Service for it to work. I have called the company and if in the USA and needing to make a long distance call to somewhere I have to dial a 1-888 number then follow the prompts to dial the other number. So complex I only ever tried it once and gave up figuring my brief "hi, how are you?" wasn't worth the hassle of trying to do it via the ATT phone.
The Virgin phone plan allowed me to text to other countries but it also ONLY worked in the USA. No ability to work in Canada or Caribbean.
Jay, I'm on GiffGaff (which is O2) and my most recent excursions have been to France, Egypt and Morocco and everything has worked fine in those countries.
I have sent a text to my sis to see if she gets it and sends a reply. She may also have been told that her mobile won't work and has left it switched off.
Jay, as someone who has travelled all over, I can assure you that Vodaphone works pretty well anywhere in the world I have sailed from Cyprus to Port Said and never lost contact, my phone was picking up the various networks all the way across until it connected to Mobinile in Egypt. In Nigeria it was only my phone on the Vodaphone network that had a constant high signal and others with me on different networks were struggling, so why yours did not work is a mystery, was it setup for 'International Roaming'?
I think some of the bigger multi national companies do work world wide. I've always heard that Vodaphone works super well anywhere and IMO all the little vendors of cell phones in the USA are usually only geared to providing a statewide or country wide service (cause they've NEVER heard of the rest of the world! )
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