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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you expect your AP to be available to answer your calls about the kids, or use the GPS to get them places, then I think it's the HF's responsibility to pay for it. It's not officially required but just the decent thing to do, as it is work-related equipment/technology for the AP.

We added her to our family plan and it cost an extra $25/month. She came with her own iPhone. Not paying for it would have been weird. [/quote]

PP, if you happen to see this... how difficult was it to get her a number and when adding her does it allow you to cancel at any time or do you simply transfer the phone number to your next AP?  Also, what carrier do you have, i was under the impression that foreign phones can be different and may only work with some carriers, no idea if that is true or not though. [/quote]

We use a T-Mobile family plan, month-to-month without a longer term contract which requires you to have your own unlocked phones. DH & I bought unlocked smart phones off Amazon and AP had an unlocked iPhone from home. I travel a lot and in every country I've visited other than the US, individuals own their own phones and prepay for services. So you can take your unlocked phone just about anywhere and buy a local sim. I'm sure there are some places and some phones for which this does not work, but I haven't encountered that scenario yet. When I travel for work, I take my normal smart phone and just swap out the sim for one I buy the first day I arrive.

The first weekend AP arrived here, we went to t-mobile, brought our documents & AP's and added her right there. She inserted the sim and it worked. Easy - much easier than getting her registered at the local community college. [/quote]

We've had the same experience with all but one of our au pairs - that one [i]thought[/i] her phone was unlocked but it wasn't.  We have AT&T, so for the first weekend or so she had to use a "Go Phone" that we bought at Target for her (it wasn't nearly as nice as her phone).  The Go Phones can be added to AT&T plans pretty easily (or could a few years ago when this happened).  She called home and got a code or something to unlock her phone, and a few days later we could add her to our plan.  Now we emphasize even more that an unlocked phone is a good idea.  In the past if an au pair came without a phone we would use one of our "upgrades" to get her a phone, but AT&T has recently changed how that work their upgrades and phone purchases so I'm not sure if that would work anymore.

We have one line on our plan that has been an "au pair" line for five years.  As one au pair leaves, the next one takes over the line.[/quote]

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