Last year my husband and I brought our ATT cell phones to England and France. We had activated both for overseas use. My phone worked, but his did not. No one we asked at a phone store in London could figure out why his did not work in Europe (even though the store in USA said they would). This year we are going to Ireland. I guess we will run into the same problem. I was wondering if anyone may know how to make sure his works. It is a Motorola Razor. Thanks
Posted by
Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada
629 posts
Prior to our trip to Spain in April, I was informed by our server that my Motorola Razor would not work over there. I upgraded the phone and had no problems with it on our trip. Don't know if you would have the same problem in Ireland? Local server should have the answers.
Posted by
OP
Wilmington, DE, USA
712 posts
In London, last year, my phone said it was on Vodafone network. and it worked on our at home ATT. My husband's phone said it was on Orange network, but he could not switch it to Vodfone. He could not use it and any phone places we stopped in did not know why. Do you think he need to change his phone?
When we were in Italy in Sept 07, I had a Motolora Raz.and it worked, but my husband had a very much older phone and it did not work... we just assumed his getting a new phone would have worked, and I had changed phones before the last trip and my phone worked as usual... Do you think it is transferring his old card, makes the new one not work overseas?
Posted by
Clarksville, TN, USA
959 posts
Marie, call AT&T and they will give you the directions to unlock your phones. This is different than simply having an international plan or having a quad band phone. There's another step involved... I used my Razr in Germany in 2007 but I had to unlock it using AT&T's directions. Last year, we went to Ireland and used our AT&T phones again, but first we had to unlock them. We went to Meteor in Dublin the morning that we got there and got cheap SIM cards to use in our phones. You should have no problems with your RAZR if you unlock it first.... Give AT&T a call and they will walk you through it...
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32324 posts
Marie,
A few comments on your questions.
To begin with, you won't need to have your phone "unlocked" unless you're planning to use it with local SIM's purchased on an Irish network. If you're roaming with AT&T, your normal SIM is all that's required.
Could you provide some further details on the phones you're both using? You mentioned that your husband's phone is a RAZR, but which handset are you using?
Most (if not all) RAZR models are quad-band handsets, which means they have both the North American and European frequency bands.
On trips to Europe in the past, I've had to manually do a "Network Search" upon arrival and switch the frequency. Some phones will do this automatically, but others (especially older phones) may not. What will typically happen is that when the phone finds a Tower that it can communicate with, it will roam onto the strongest network (ie: O2, Vodaphone, Orange or others). This will change as you move around the country.
Cheers!