Recent Smart Phone Experience

TC,

if no one chimes in im looking at the Note 3 5.7 for my next trip next year and found out the same Regional lock issues.

Someone in the UK did some testing with the samsung product and tried using local and non local sims to see what would happen. in the end, if you used a local sim to "unlock" the device first, it was okay to use a non local sim after that. Even if you didnt, all you would need to do was to make sure it had a local sim to "unlock" the device.

also, just so you can fret some more, if i remember correctly (iirc) verizon had voice quality issues too with the S4?

happy trails.

To start with, in general Verizon phones cannot be used in Europe because Verizon uses CDMA technology and Europe uses GSM technology. In the US AT&T and T Mobile use GSM. There are some newer phones that are called "World" phones that have two sim cards and can be used on both CDMA and GSM. Do not know if the S4 fits into this category. Your mobile phone company has to unlock your phone so that a foreign sim card can be used in it. You can then either get a sim card for the country you are visiting online or when you get there. You put it in your phone when you get there and you have a phone number for that country.

If you have a phone under contract your phone company will not (there may be exceptions) unlock your phone because that means you can take it to another carrier. I just had my AT&T phone unlocked for an upcoming trip to Italy.

I haven't used that phone, but Verizon has worked fine for me in Europe on multiple trips. Last trip I used my iPhone 5, and all I had to do was have them add an international plan. I also bought their international data, and $25 was plenty for light Internet use on a one-month trip. On previous trips I used my own GSM Verizon dumb phone, and before that I got phones through their loaner program. I should note that all of these trips were to Europe. I've not used their international service in other parts of the world.

One other point about Verizon: you have to really push to actually get to their international department. I get the impression that their regular reps are strongly encouraged to take care of international themselves. And I have been given really bad information from the normal customer service people. The last couple of times, I just refused to talk to the first line customer service people, and just kept insisting they transfer me to the international dept. They are competent. So you might try calling back and insist on being transferred.

I recently added Global calling from Verizon, it works in some countries but not globally. I use my iPad for wifi, not the iPhone. Free or low-cost wifi is widely available in Europe.

What Sherry said.

Verizon is our normal carrier. We have had the same "global ready" dumb phones since 2009. They have worked in all European countries we've visited since then. We have set up the international plan(s) both to call Europe from the US and to call the US and within Europe while we are there.

We have not yet replaced our phones with smart phones. When we had our first opportunity, Verizon had no global ready phones that were any better than what we had. In fact the reviews were worse. We travel to Europe annually and we simply will not purchase any kind of phone that is not global ready. Now that there are more global ready options, we are more likely to get new phones before our next trip.

Back to Sherry's comments.

Verizon has a 100% error rate on setting up the international calling plan(s) over the phone for us. Two times our phones didn't work when we arrived. The 1st time the agent didn't give us a required piece of info to get them started. The 2nd time the agent set up the US to Europe part, but not the within Europe part. Fortunately in both those cases our 1st or 2nd lodging stop had free phone calls to the US, so I was able to straighten things out from Europe.

One time they worked fine but when we got home we discovered that no one had set up anything at all, so we were charged the very high per minute rate. That was also fixed because there were notes in the file as to when it was supposed to be turned on and it wasn't.

The only time things have worked perfectly was when I set it up online. I assume that if you can actually get to a Global Services representative, they can do it correctly, too. It was so hard to find the Global Services section on their website that I bookmarked it: http://www.verizonwireless.com/wcms/global.html. I believe the phone number behind the Visit Support link on this page is different from the other Verizon numbers, so you can get directly to them and hopefully skip the torture of dealing with someone who doesn't know enough to be of any real help.

By the way. Our funky old Samsung flip phones have 3 Network Modes: CDMA, GSM and Global. Our phones are on Global all the time. When we go to a different country, we get a little welcome text message which indicates where we are, what the network is and who's providing the service.

@Bob For a lengthy list of Verizon mobile phones capable for calling while in Europe see the Verizon Wireless international trip planner website. My former and current Verizon phones are on the list.

And how much do you pay Verizon for the international plan and how much do your in country calls cost? With an unlocked GSM phone and an European sim card, in county calls cost me about 5 cents per minute.

Our cost isn't nearly that cheap, but I don't worry about it.

For 2 months of international access both ways and all the calls we made on 2 phones the total cost was $46 for our trip this year. Remember, we have dumb flip phones with no texting, no GPS, no internet access, just voice. When we finally get smart phones, it will be a different story, I'm sure, and I will have to budget for it.

My Verizon phone is unlocked so I have the option to sign up with one of their international plans or buy a sim card with a much more economical plan.

We were recently stuck on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico for two days floating in a tropical storm. The ship line said they were opening up the phone lines for people to call home free. They didn't tell everyone that AT&T and other carriers were going to charge international rates.

Upon our return home, my daughter's phone bill was more than two cruise fares. She raised cain and got an adjustment, but the phone bill was ridiculous.

I got my first smart phone last month at T Mobile. Their international plan is 20 cents for voice and data and texting is unlimited. And my bill is less than half that of my daughter's AT&T bill. Needless to say, we're shortly terminating her plan at AT&T.

@David,

If you plan on any more cruises, be sure to check the T-Mobile rates for cruise ships. The rate for calls appears to be $5.99 per minute according to THIS Website. Most cell phone carriers charge exorbitant rates for calls from ships.

Many thanks for all the input. It is really appreciated. TC

I have Verizon service and enrolled in their Global Travel Program (GTP) for voice and data on a recent trip to Austria and Germany. For the voice plan, you can purchase a reduced calling rate for a one-time fee of $4.99; for data plan, you can purchase an initial 100 MB for $25. If you reach your data limit, you must approve a second $25 charge, so there is a safety net that prevents exorbitant data charges. I have an iPhone 5 that is global-ready. It worked very well in both Austria and Germany, with the lone exception that upon arrival in Austria I was not able to activate the phone because I had forgotten to turn off the 'enable LTE' function (my bad). However, this problem was resolved very quickly following a toll-free call from my hotel room phone (land line) to Verizon Customer Service in Austria. (Verizon gives you the toll-free contact numbers for each country you will be in.) I found the Verizon GTP to be an easy 'one-stop shop' and also allowed me to keep my US phone number, so I could be easily reached by family in the event of an emergency at home. The GTP didn't end up costing us very much because we didn't make/receive very many calls or send/receive many texts during our trip, and I never got close to the 100 MB data limit because of the hotel wifi opportunities. However, the convenience of having voice and data access whenever I needed them, at what I considered to be a reasonable cost, was what I wanted. I plan to continue to enroll in the Verizon GTP for future European travels.