activating a cell phone from europe that uses sim card in the usa?

[laFiera]

Hello all!
My gf just moved from europe to the usa and she has a nice nokia phone that uses a SIM card...what's the best way to activate the phone in the usa? she wants to keep her old cell phone and doesn't want to get a new one. I walked in an att store the other day cause long ago i had att and it had a sim card, but the moron there said something about getting a new phone....any advice is appreciated!
thanks in advance...

 

[pm]

Which Nokia is it? To work on all carriers in the US it needs to be a tri-band or quad-band phone - our frequencies are different than Europe.

So you can do this four ways:
1. do the standard US method and go to a T-Mobile or AT&T store, let them talk you into a a one or two year plan, get a cheap phone along with a plan, take the cheap phone home and take out the SIM card and put the SIM in your girlfriend's phone, put the cheap phone on Ebay. But you are stuck with an annual contract.
2. get a prepaid plan from either AT&T or T-Mobile, tell them you already have an unlocked GSM phone, put the SIM they give you into your girlfriend's phone.
3. go into a T-Mobile or AT&T store and tell them you have a phone already and want to do a pay-as-you-go plan. Get the SIM from them, put it in the phone.
4. call up T-Mobile or AT&T's customer service. Tell them you already have a phone and want to sign up for a plan but don't want to sign up for the 2 year agreement. Repeat this to the next couple of people that they redirect you to. When they tell you this is impossible, remind them that they issued a press release on this on July 30th, 2008 that advertised this new "feature". When they tell you that they don't know anything about this, politely ask for a manager. Explain to the manager what you want, when he agrees, sign up with them and then wait a week for the SIM to arrive in the mail and put it in your girlfriend's phone.

But before you do anything - check the Nokia model number against US frequencies and make sure it will work here.

 

[laFiera]

wow!
that was a very detailed and quite informate response!
thanks a bunch!

 

[DivideBYZero]

Make sure it's unlocked before you buy into a long sim-only plan.

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: pm
Which Nokia is it? To work on all carriers in the US it needs to be a tri-band or quad-band phone - our frequencies are different than Europe.

So you can do this four ways:
1. do the standard US method and go to a T-Mobile or AT&T store, let them talk you into a a one or two year plan, get a cheap phone along with a plan, take the cheap phone home and take out the SIM card and put the SIM in your girlfriend's phone, put the cheap phone on Ebay. But you are stuck with an annual contract.
2. get a prepaid plan from either AT&T or T-Mobile, tell them you already have an unlocked GSM phone, put the SIM they give you into your girlfriend's phone.
3. go into a T-Mobile or AT&T store and tell them you have a phone already and want to do a pay-as-you-go plan. Get the SIM from them, put it in the phone.
4. call up T-Mobile or AT&T's customer service. Tell them you already have a phone and want to sign up for a plan but don't want to sign up for the 2 year agreement. Repeat this to the next couple of people that they redirect you to. When they tell you this is impossible, remind them that they issued a press release on this on July 30th, 2008 that advertised this new "feature". When they tell you that they don't know anything about this, politely ask for a manager. Explain to the manager what you want, when he agrees, sign up with them and then wait a week for the SIM to arrive in the mail and put it in your girlfriend's phone.

But before you do anything - check the Nokia model number against US frequencies and make sure it will work here.

Detailed, but you forgot the first step and could likely make them lose some money.

 

[pm]

Good point, both of you. I should have mentioned that in there.

In my defense, more than half of EU countries prohibit locking - and the rest (except for Germany and the UK) have restrictions on it. So locking in Europe is rare - which is why I forgot that it's even an issue... every EU country that I have visited recently didn't have locked phones.

As far as losing money, CZroe, you have a point - and I admit my mistake - but on both T-Mobile and AT&T you have 14 days to return a phone or plan without any penalties.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Well the locking situation in France is that they CAN lock, but you MUST sell an unlocked version, which obviously goes for an extortionate price. Ergo you are more likely to get a locked phone, especially if it is recently introduced or carrier exclusive.

 

[pm]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
Well the locking situation in France is that they CAN lock, but you MUST sell an unlocked version, which obviously goes for an extortionate price. Ergo you are more likely to get a locked phone, especially if it is recently introduced or carrier exclusive.

According to Wikipedia, it's not quite that bad. I mean, you are right, but still, you can get your phone unlocked without much hassle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock

In France, SIM locks are not prohibited. However, the mobile operator must inform the consumer of the existence of a SIM lock. The subscriber has the right to request that the SIM lock be removed at any time. No later than 6 months prior to the conclusion of the contract, the mobile operator must "systematically and free of charge" provide the subscriber with a procedure to deactivate the SIM lock.[19] Operators may charge a fee for removing the SIM lock prior to the 6-month deadline.

This matches what I've heard of the iPhone in France and in Germany(for a while); you can buy it locked or unlocked, you can choose to unlock it whenever you want (you take it to an Orange store), you pay a hefty fee for this, but you can do it - and when the contract is close to expiring or expired they have to unlock it for free.

 

[aatf510]

Originally posted by: pm
Which Nokia is it? To work on all carriers in the US it needs to be a tri-band or quad-band phone - our frequencies are different than Europe.

So you can do this four ways:
1. do the standard US method and go to a T-Mobile or AT&T store, let them talk you into a a one or two year plan, get a cheap phone along with a plan, take the cheap phone home and take out the SIM card and put the SIM in your girlfriend's phone, put the cheap phone on Ebay. But you are stuck with an annual contract.
2. get a prepaid plan from either AT&T or T-Mobile, tell them you already have an unlocked GSM phone, put the SIM they give you into your girlfriend's phone.
3. go into a T-Mobile or AT&T store and tell them you have a phone already and want to do a pay-as-you-go plan. Get the SIM from them, put it in the phone.
4. call up T-Mobile or AT&T's customer service. Tell them you already have a phone and want to sign up for a plan but don't want to sign up for the 2 year agreement. Repeat this to the next couple of people that they redirect you to. When they tell you this is impossible, remind them that they issued a press release on this on July 30th, 2008 that advertised this new "feature". When they tell you that they don't know anything about this, politely ask for a manager. Explain to the manager what you want, when he agrees, sign up with them and then wait a week for the SIM to arrive in the mail and put it in your girlfriend's phone.

But before you do anything - check the Nokia model number against US frequencies and make sure it will work here.

The above is unnecessary.
I just setup a new account with AT&T with my own Nokia N73 phone, and the sale person in store had no problem signing me up with a 0-month contract. (I believe it works with T-mobile as well because my friend did the same with T-mobile.)
I believe they can put you up with a plan w/o contract as long as you don't buy a phone from them with a highly subsidied price.

 

[pm]

Originally posted by: toattett
I believe they can put you up with a plan w/o contract as long as you don't buy a phone from them with a highly subsidied price.

This is true - this is what I was saying in #4. It is the policy of both AT&T and T-Mobile to allow this... but a lot of their salespeople don't seem to be aware of it. But maybe it's just that I live in a smaller town in the middle of Colorado...