SIM card from Germany--use in US?

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.gsm (More info?)

On Fri, 28 May 2004 at 13:16 GMT, <mwagner2@twcny.rr.com> wrote:

> Now that I am back in US, would I be correct that the SIM will no longer
> function. As I understand it, the SIM uses 900/1800 GSM frequencies
> in Europe, and of course here in US the GSM frequency is 1900.

I don't think it's the freq, per se, that's causing the issue. AFAIK,
a sim is tied to a network account, not to a frequency.

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Archived from groups: alt.cellular.gsm (More info?)

On Fri, 28 May 2004 13:16:01 GMT, Mahlon Wagner
<mwagner2@twcny.rr.com> wrote:

>Because of excellent advice on this newsgroup I was able to buy a
>prepaid SIM (Vodaphone--D2) in Germany and use it in my Motorola V66
>phone. It turned out that I could even call back to the USA--of course
>it was very expensive.
>
>Now that I am back in US, would I be correct that the SIM will no longer
>function. As I understand it, the SIM uses 900/1800 GSM frequencies
>in Europe, and of course here in US the GSM frequency is 1900.
The sim could care what frequency it is used on, it has the subscriber
information, PERIOD.

Motorola phones usually have to be commanded to change frequency,
(Ericsson phones if they don't find anything in one band, try another,
so when you from North America to Europe, the first registrationoften
takes a while, because it will search the 1900Mhz band before trying
for 900Mhz unless you change the clock. If you change the clock to a
new time zone, it will switch the search order of the bands if
appropriate.

>
>At first, after the SIM was installed, the phone wouldn't work. I had
>to consult several people at VOdaphone, and finally the fourth person
>realized that the frequency change was needed---but even the Motorola
>V66 manual didn't make any real reference to this. I was simply
>surprised that the first 3 people at Vodaphone (and even T-Mobile)
>couldn't figure out the problem. I guess that lack of training of
>sales people extends everywhere.
>
>Thanks
>Mahl

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.gsm (More info?)

On Fri, 28 May 2004 13:16:01 GMT, Mahlon Wagner
<mwagner2@twcny.rr.com> wrote:

>Now that I am back in US, would I be correct that the SIM will no longer
>function. As I understand it, the SIM uses 900/1800 GSM frequencies
>in Europe, and of course here in US the GSM frequency is 1900.

SIM has nothing to do with it working or not. If D2 has prepaid
roaming in the US it will work provided it's used in a GSM 1900 phone.
You may have some modified outbound dialing procedure i.e. you may not
be able to just dial as normal.

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Archived from groups: alt.cellular.gsm (More info?)

Joseph schrieb:
>
> SIM has nothing to do with it working or not. If D2 has prepaid
> roaming in the US it will work provided it's used in a GSM 1900 phone.
> You may have some modified outbound dialing procedure i.e. you may not
> be able to just dial as normal.
>
Correct. Look at http://www.vodafone.de/infofaxe/397.pdf (german).
There you find on page 7 that roaming should be possible in several US
networks using a GSM 1900 phone.

Wolfgang