can i use a foriegn cell phone in the usa?

[theomms]

i am going to Japan in a month and i was wondering if i saw a cell phone that i liked would i be able to bring it back with me, and use it in california?

 

[2Xtreme21]

I imagine so... if it's not locked into a certain cell carrier over there.

 

[w00t]

if you get an unlocked cellphone no service than you should be able to get service from idk cingular pretty easily just put in the sim card and away you go. the phones over there are probably pretty cheap compared to the us huh

 

[acole1]

a lot of them over there support GSM as far as i know. to be sure you might ask your providor what signal types they require, and make sure the phone fits those requirements.

the phones cost almost 1\2 as much there, and they are newer... i envy you if it works

 

[Goi]

Just make sure it's the same GSM network. Get triband if you can. Japan has CDMA networks too IIRC, so if you get one of those you'll be stuck with sprint.

 

[morkman100]

Depends on the carrier you go with in CA. I believe Cingular uses the 850/1900 frequency, while T-Mobile uses 1900 only. You could always play it safe and get a world phone (quad band... which is 850/900/1800/1900).

 

[kami333]

Japanese phones are generally WCDMA so you won't be able to.

However, the providers are selling world-compatible phones that have GSM, Sharp and Toshiba have a whole line of them. The tricky part is unlocking them, when I was in Japan last November I was looking into it but none of the current phones being sold could be unlocked (some of the older ones could be). Or even if you could unlock it, it was only with a firmware flash that disabled some of the functions and disabled use of Japanese (the main reason I wanted it). So if you do decide to go this route, make sure you do your homework on which model to get.

A friend of mine told me about these guys link