Cell Phones

Warner,

As the previous reply mentioned, if you take your "home" Cell phone to Europe, the network will find you whereever you are. I'm assuming you're with either AT&T or T-Mobile? You might want to check with the C.S. department to get some idea what the roaming costs will be. I believe AT&T has an "international roaming plan" that will reduce the costs somewhat.

Incoming calls are usually in the range of $1.50-2.00 / minute, as the call is routed from your home area. Calls back to the U.S. should be about the same amount. I've found that the least expensive method to keep in touch with friends and family back home is to use text messaging (of course, that only works with those that have Cell phones).

Last year when I was in France, I received a call from my Bank concerning an "issue" with my ATM card. Despite the cost (and the time of day the call was received), I was pleased that they phoned as the alternative would have been having both my ATM cards "locked". They may have been reluctant to phone if the call involved international dialing codes and long distance charges.

AT&T International Plan is 99 cents a minute; roaming is $1.29 a minute. Texts are charged per message. If you keep track and use wisely it shouldn't be a shock when you return home. (Just be sure "data" is turned off so you aren't using that feature if you have it).

What countries will you be visiting? If Switzerland is on the list, we have found the SwissCom pay phones to be very reasonable, using either a Visa card or purchases phone card (the rate is the same). Most of my calls to family in the US from there were $2.40 or less.

My original question has only to do with what numbers to dial not with costs. I understand the costs. From Steve's reply, I assume calls coming to my phone will be dialed as usual. This includes US-based phones being used like mine in Europe as well as Europe-based phones being used in Europe, right?
But from what Steve says, I have to dial as if I am in Europe. I have to dial the international access code first if I am calling to the US (or to a US phone being used in Europe?) or calling from France to Germany, for instance. Am I correct?

Warner,
Be sure the people who have your number know you are in Europe. One trip my phone rang at 3:00 a.m. It was my cousin calling wanting my sister's phone number. She had no idea I was in Paris.

when your phone is in Europe, you have to dial the international access code to make calls to the States or within Europe. As Steve says, just add the "+1" to your phone book now since it doesn't cause any problems when you use your phone in the US. Note that you need the 1 as well as the + if you don't have the 1 in front of the area code in your stored numbers.

I believe the question Warner is asking is how people can reach his cell phone while he is in Europe. The answer is they will call exactly the same as if he is in Iowa, dialing the area code and phone number. They do not need to dial 00 or anything else first, just 1-area code-phone number. That is how my cousin called me, not knowing I was in Paris. That is why I cautioned that they may get calls they don't expect.

I'm not an expert, but here's my experience, in Paris, in April 2010. I have a Nokia tri-band, with T-Mobile carrier. Last time in France I bought a SIM card, which drove me crazy with all of the [unintelligible] instructions in French. So this time I just said I'll pay the $1.29/min and use texting as much as possible ($.20 incoming, $.35 outgoing). To call the U.S., I dialed the same as if I were at home (e.g., 1-312-123-4567) -- used the one-button speed dial, worked fine. People in the U.S. called my cell number and it rang same as normal and they had no idea where I was if I didn't tell them. To call my wife, also in Paris, I had to dial 00-[her U.S cell #, with AC], e.g., 00-1-312-123-4567. To call a local Paris # I dialed 011-33 ["33" is the country code for France]-6-12-34-56-78 [NOTE: if the # you want to call begins with a 0, you skip it if you're dialing in France, you would leave it in if you're calling from the U.S. -- that's why the # is "-6-" not "-06-" even if the published # begins "06". All of the above is trial and error, usually in desperation when we HAD to contact someone and kept experimenting until we found the secret code. Good luck. --Robert

Hold on...Let's say I'm in Europe and I've taken my iPhone with me to use with wifi, not phone. I have it in airplane mode. But then, at one point on my trip I decide that I do need to make a call using my iPhone, so I suck it up and deal with the international charges and make the call. Then, I put my iPhone back on airplane mode. From that point on, all incoming calls to my voice mail will be charged to me as an international call?