Mobile (prepaid?) phones in the UK

[Anonymous]

I will be in London for a week and want to buy a mobile phone to use there. I know people do this, but when I try to find info online, it's (a) dizzying and (b) seems rife with scams. Any suggestions for good brands/phones or tips on how this works? I want to be able to make calls to and receive calls from home (DC) and also make a few local calls in the London area. I don't want to spend ages figuring this out once I get there. I would so appreciate guidance on this... am feeling clueless! Thanks.

[Anonymous]

You need an unlocked GSM phone with triband or quadband, and then a SIM card for the UK.

GSM is the technology used by the phone-- it's used by most of the world, except in the US only t-mobile and AT&T use it but other companies don't.

The "bands" are the frequencies used by the phone-- again the US uses a different "band" than Europe, so you need a tri-band or quad-band to make sure your phone can get reception.

The SIM card is what tells the phone your phone number (and enables billing), so to get a UK phone number, you need a UK SIM card. SIM cards can be bought here or often they can be bought (cheaper) once you get overseas (but then of course you won't be able to give anyone your phone number before you leave).

If your phone is "unlocked" then you will be able to put any SIM card into it-- a "locked" phone will only work on the network (say t-mobile) on which it was first sold. Unlocked phones can be found for sale online (both ebay and stores), and if you happen to have a t-mobile phone they may give you an unlock code as well.

If all of that seems like too much detail and you want an easy, not too expensive one-stop solution, I'd advise checking out telestial.com-- they seem to have pretty cheap phones and SIM cards for sale.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply. I do have a t-mobile phone here in the US -- but can't you just buy one over there? And "top up" as you go?

[Anonymous]

The UK SIM card you get will almost certainly use pre-paid billing -- so you will top up as you go in any case. If you want to wait and try and buy a cheap phone over there you can probably do that, but you might want to check to see if your current phone will work if you buy a new SIM card.

[Anonymous]

In any UK city, there are a ton of cell phone shops that sell prepaid SIMs and prepaid phones. Look for CarPhoneWarehouse (CPW) as they are a little cheaper than Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2 (are they Vodafone?), etc. You can't walk half a block without seeing one. Cell phone shops are like Starbucks here--4 on every street corner.

If you have T-Mobile phone, call them and ask them to unlock your phone. Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't. They'll ask you why, so tell them it's because you travel FREQUENTLY and want to get a prepaid SIM in Europe.

[Anonymous]

PP here. Incidentally, I use the Virgin prepaid mobile when I am in the UK. I found their rates to be the best.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much, everyone.

I am going to call T-Mobile and see if they'll unlock my phone for me -- I guess that's the best place to start.

If they won't, or I get hopelessly confused -- I'm wondering how much a supercheap prepaid phone would cost (as opposed to just the SIM card) if bought at someplace like CarPhone Warehouse?

(As an "Extras" fan, I would be tickled to shop at CarPhone Warehouse anyway!)

Thanks again, really appreciate it!