Cellphone Dilemma - 1 Year in Germany

You'll get a new, cheap, basic, unlocked cell phone for around 30 euros here in Germany. If you know where to look or there's a bargain sale you may even find one for 20 euros.

I studied in Germany for a semester and bought a phone when I got there. It wasn't too expensive and actually held an excellent charge! If he's going to be there for a year, I'm sure he can find someone to help him find the good deals. :-)

I would probably buy a phone there just to make sure it works. Any unlocked quad band will work but most phones in the US aren't quad band and unlocked is even rarer. You can probably find a cheap used phone on Amazon here, but if it doesn't work, it's worthless.

European SIMs charge only for outbound calls. As far as I know, he can receive calls for free - including calls from home. Maybe the poster from Berlin can tell me if I'm correct. If so, it's a great way for you to connect with him.

You may have already planned to use Skype. If not, Vonage (voice over internet) service is a fairly cheap phone service that works well and calls to Germany are free. We changed from Vonage to T-Mobile at home because it was cheaper but will change back.

Even though it may not be the absolute cheapest option I'd advise him to buy the phone there. My daughter did this for her year studying in France. She got the phone quite easily the day she arrived, no question about whether it would work. Not sure if the billing is the same for all phones but the way it worked for her was the sim card came with some amount of minutes already on it and she would reload it as necessary - no plan with "free minutes" as we have here. And yes, her incoming calls were free, she was only charged for outgoing. She used the phone to contact others in France, NOT to call us. We used Skype for that - including buying a small amount of Skype credit on each end to allow us to call land and cell lines. She would call our land line using Skype at a few cents/minute and if we answered, then we would hang up and both get on Skype to talk for free. And if I couldn't reach her on her computer, I could use my Skype credit to call her cellphone for about 20 cents/minute on my end and free on her end. It was great.

And back to the cellphone - the loaded minutes also included a certain number of texts which she used frequently. But she and her fellow French students did not use their cells to chat - since there was no unlimited minutes use - they used it when needed to meet up or other business. They even used Skype between them as again, that was free.

Brad, incoming calls are free as long as he's not roaming. So if Emilyn's son has a German SIM card and is in his German net, he pays nothing for a call from Emilyn. But if he's in, for example Italy, he would be roaming, and Emilyn would pay for the call from the US to Germany and her son for the transfer from Germany to Italy.

One thing I just thought of was charging. If you buy a phone it will probably have the american style plug, he'll either need to get a new charger or use a plug adapter. I would choose to just buy a phone there. If he isn't going to change carriers whether the phone is unlocked or not doesn't matter.

He can get a cheap good one off ebay. In Europe he would need to know where to buy a used one.
An adapter for the Euro plug would cost here $1. Don't need to buy a new adapter.
Data cost in Europe is high, unless you are an a plan.Incoming calls while in the country whre the SIM card was bought are Free which is a good thing.
Per minute cost is about 20 cents as far as I know.
Or maybe he can sign up for a plan since he's going to be there for one year.

You mean your son is going to be studying in Germany for a year and you are not going to get him an iPhone? Come on! Every young student wants an iPhone, and there is a great new one coming out later this month.

"You mean your son is going to be studying in Germany for a year and you are not going to get him an iPhone? Come on! Every young student wants an iPhone, and there is a great new one coming out later this month."

Kidding, right? If he wants an iPhone, he'd better buy it there. All the ones here are locked to AT&T.

I just went with a friend who needed a cheap phone into Saturn, the largest electronics store here in Germany with stores in every city. They had pre-paid phones for as little as 9.99 €. These were just for Germany though, so you couldn't go buy a SIM card for another country with these. Next to it were pre-paid phones for 29.99 € and these you could buy SIM cards for. The clerks all spoke English, they switched the phone over to English too, and with a 5 euro card to go with it, the deal was done, just like that. These are easy to top up with minutes.

For long distance calling, his best bet is to go to an internet cafe, buy a phone card for 5 €, and use the phones there in the booths. These internet cafes are all over Germany. A 5 € card will give him hours of telephoning. He just needs to use the correct number on the back. The vendor can show him which one, as one number is for domestic phone calls, the other for international. Some folks have been known to use the wrong one and wonder why their time is used up in 10 min.

Perspective from a guy who had two kids study abroad, but way before cellphones were invented;

Forget about it and let it be his project. Kids figure out everything from each other. He'll have what he needs by lunch time on his first day.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply.

Looks like my son will be buying a phone over there. He will shop in Giessen or Frankfurt. I'm sure he's hoping to find an inexpensive smartphone. He'll miss his iPhone. Too bad! I can't believe we'll still have to pay $10 a month for AT&T to suspend his phone so that he can come back to the grandfathered "unlimited texting."

Brad, I did look at Amazon and eBay and it's something we'll consider when my husband and I travel over.

Mark, your info on roaming with a German SIM card makes sense. I'll make sure my son gets country-specific cards when he travels.

Karen, I forgot about Skye. My kids Skype all the time, but not once did they mention that as an option. Must be a generational disconnect!

Jo, I've let my son know about Saturn. I'm sure he's on their site right now!

Thanks again for everyone's help.