Quoted:
Quoted:
I thought any GSM phone works pretty well around the world.
My old Palm (AT&T version) worked in Bahamas, China, Belize and Canada.
Buying a local SIM card is just a way to get a local rate for local usage and not cutting AT&T in on the deal.
verizon is not gsm, so us on verizon are a little different
I thought I had covered this, but I'll go into more detail.
Phones services like AT&T are GSM only while Verizon has three system options GSM, IXEV, and what the call Global (CDMA). That's why this thread isn't wow I wish I had an Iphone because Iphone isn't an CDMA option or at least won't be until next year at Verizon. The 8830 for me wasn't a phone option. It was the only phone option to be able to access those options and have the most complete coverage overseas.
That's really what this thread is about, options overseas.
Its like I posted before, if you are going to some vacation spot or large city a GSM probably works just fine for you but if you are country hopping and going to the boonies, the ability to switch types is the difference between having service and not. Having the most durable phone in the world that doesn't work all the time is not a good option for some of us. During my time in China, after I left Shanghai, I never saw another westerner from any country.
Where Verizon approaches this as switch this button, AT&T takes a switch this SIM card.
On my last trip, I would simply loose service. Now instead of going "Oh wow, no service here" despite all the locals talking away on theirs, I'd switch service types then my phone would work.
In my very laxed layman understanding, I will try to explain this. There's a thousands of phone service providers in the world. Unlike the USA where we buy our phones and subscribe to this one service, overseas they buy minutes on a given service. They mostly buy their phones outright then can switch services by changing out the SIM card. Think of it more like Net 10 etc. They basically have what's called "Unlocked" cell phones. Where all the world was basically GSM, even then there were two GSM bands in the US and two totally different GSM bands in say Europe, now CDMA services are popping up all over the world. Our sim cards basically do one major function, it tells these thousands of services this is who I am and you can bill my provider for my airtime or I pre-paid on this local bought card. There are, or course, deals within deals within those countries as well. What you have basically is two hurdles to using your phone overseas. One is will your phone work on a given system in the area you are and do they have an billing agreement. What we're basically doing overseas is the old "Roaming". Now the more agreements ones provider has the more service area will be available for roaming and the more options on service types one has the more options one has a roaming. Many of our phones won't work at all because common US phone will be typically locked to on service type (there's four GSMs for exammple). World phones are designed to access different service types.
Where Europe has a very large one of the four GSMs, Asia on the other hand has a very large CDMA presence. You'll find this a lot in developing areas since basically CDMA is a newer service type than GSM and provides faster download capability for data transfer. Eastern Europe, for example, you will run into more CDMA than Western Europe.
The Verizon system also typically avoids the entire have to have the local SIM, new local phone number, problem you run into with GSM phones that the area does not have billing agreements. The charge is a little more per minute as a result to cover all the different rates.
Anyway, for now, technology is fleeting, the advantage of the World 8830 isn't its the I can bash this phone around anyway I like durability, but it will allow you to make more calls in the world than any other phone with the least amount of hassle.
In the work I do, the guys I deal with have plants now on three continents and dealings on all of them well maybe not Anartica. Penguins don't buy much.
Tj