[Kerrigan]

I do a bit of traveling between Europe and the US, I mainly spend summers in the US so naturally I need to be able to make phone-calls in America for a period of several months. I decided recently to go ahead and get a contract with Cingular since I make so many calls in the US, and I bought a GSM Moto V3.

The Cingular salesman said that the phones are locked to the provider, which sounded fishy, so I decided to swap round SIM cards between my US V3 and my UK V600.

My Cingular SIM card works in my V600 which I bought from O2 (via carphone warehouse)...

Now that can get quite confusing so I will hurry up and get to the question:

Can I use my Cingular SIM card with any other GSM phones that I buy in Europe or Asia? I'd like to know this because I don't like the V3 very much and I want to replace it quickly with a better phone, but we all know how limited the selection is in America.

If anyone actually understood what I was rambling on about, could you please provide some insight? Thanks

[turboSPE]

Originally Posted by Kerrigan

I do a bit of traveling between Europe and the US, I mainly spend summers in the US so naturally I need to be able to make phone-calls in America for a period of several months. I decided recently to go ahead and get a contract with Cingular since I make so many calls in the US, and I bought a GSM Moto V3.

The Cingular salesman said that the phones are locked to the provider, which sounded fishy, so I decided to swap round SIM cards between my US V3 and my UK V600.

My Cingular SIM card works in my V600 which I bought from O2 (via carphone warehouse)...

Now that can get quite confusing so I will hurry up and get to the question:

Can I use my Cingular SIM card with any other GSM phones that I buy in Europe or Asia? I'd like to know this because I don't like the V3 very much and I want to replace it quickly with a better phone, but we all know how limited the selection is in America.

If anyone actually understood what I was rambling on about, could you please provide some insight? Thanks

As long as the phone supports the 850 MHz band (Cingular's main frequency here in the US)along with the European frequencies, you'll be fine. I have a Sony/Ericsson T616 that works great here and worked even better on my foray to London this fall. The phones that Cingular markets as "World Phone" or "Quad-Band" are not locked (at least they used to not be) and can be used overseas. Your best bet would be to get one of these "world phones" from Cingular so you'll be almost guaranteed coverage here and there.

turboSPE

[Eug Wanker]

If you're buying from Europe, it may be problematic. Cingular loves the 850 band it seems, but the 850 band is not used anywhere in Europe. Thus 99.9% of phones there don't support the 850 band.

If your V3 is unlocked, it would be the perfect phone for you, since it supports Cingular's 850, as well as 900/1800/1900. If it isn't already unlocked, you could get someone to unlock it for you for a small fee.

[Kerrigan]

Eug: so the reason my European V600 works with Cingular is because Motorolla phones tend to work 850? Would I have such luck finding a Sony Ericsson which supports 850?

[turboSPE]

Many of the US versions of both phone brands you mentioned work worldwide.

[JHromadka]

Just get a quad-band phone if you're a traveler that uses Cingular in the US, or a tri-band phone if you use T-Mobile. here is a page that talks about the different frequencies and where they are used.