Mobile Phone Usage Overseas

branhow — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:01:36 +0000

If you plan on using a cell phone in Hong Kong/ China, you probably would not want to pay international roaming fees and what not. Paying international roaming fees would probably cost you a fortune, especially if your with an North American cell carrier. There is a way around this. If you are in the U.S. then you kind of have a limited amount of choices to get around this dilemma. Here in the United States we have various different kinds of cell frequencies, CDMA, GSM, and some less popular cellphone frequencies. Allow me to give you a quick summary. Verizon Wireless and Sprint utilize the CDMA frenquency here in the United States, whereas AT&T and T-Mobile utlize the GSM frenquency. Unfortunately if you use Sprint and Verizon it will be a little difficult. If you are with AT&T or T-Mobile then you are in good luck. Before leaving the U.S. you will need to call either AT&T or T-Mobile and ask them you would like a code to unlock your cell phone. Sometimes this is called a NCK code. This is a simple process, but if it does not work the first time, do you enter in your key again. Please contact your mobile service providers again. If you enter the unlocking code too many times, you could permently lock your phone. Anyways if you do not want to go through this process you can also buy unlocked phones, either here in the U.S. or buy a cheap phone in Hong Kong. All the phones offered in Hong Kong/ China are unlocked. You can find phones online as low as $50, but in Hong Kong they are a little more expensive. I bought a Nokia N95 last year, which is an unlocked phone. It’s a quadband phone so I will have no problem using it in Hong Kong. If you plan on buying an unlocked phone, make sure to look for an unlocked tri-band or quad-band GSM phone. If you look for those minimum requirements, then you will be in great shape. So now that we can use your phone overseas, what about a mobile service provider in Hong Kong. Tomorrow I will do a post on two of the major cell providers in Hong Kong. Until then take care!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri_band

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_band

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands

myhktrips.com- My Adventures Through Hong Kong and Mainland China » GSM

Mobile Phone Usage Overseas