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Communicating in A Foreign Country [mobile phones]
ahava
Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
Hi guys!
I'm an American living in New Zealand. But I'm traveling back to the US in about 2 days time to spend a week with my parents and to also come to PAX. I had intended on just picking up a tracfone type thing while at LA Airport and using that while in the country to communicate with friends and people at PAX.
however, I and my partner/boyfriend Ecco were wondering if there were some way to bring our own phones that we have here in NZ and just buy a prepaid SIM card for one of the companies. I've been shown that there are sim cards for GoPhones from AT&T but I'm curious as to whether or not they would be compatible with my phone.
What I'm looking for are suggestions for the best and cheapest way to get a phone/SIM with a US number for communicating with the locals for a short period of time.
Anything you guys can suggest will be hugely appreciated.
I'm an American living in New Zealand. But I'm traveling back to the US in about 2 days time to spend a week with my parents and to also come to PAX. I had intended on just picking up a tracfone type thing while at LA Airport and using that while in the country to communicate with friends and people at PAX.
however, I and my partner/boyfriend Ecco were wondering if there were some way to bring our own phones that we have here in NZ and just buy a prepaid SIM card for one of the companies. I've been shown that there are sim cards for GoPhones from AT&T but I'm curious as to whether or not they would be compatible with my phone.
What I'm looking for are suggestions for the best and cheapest way to get a phone/SIM with a US number for communicating with the locals for a short period of time.
Anything you guys can suggest will be hugely appreciated.
ahava on
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If you don't know whether or not it's unlocked I can't help you. You'll have to try a SIM from another carrier in it to find out. It's also possible it's on only some weird non-US frequencies and won't work here either.
You can get cheap prepaid phones from Wal-Mart for like $20-$30 and they should work without fail.
If you purchased your phones directly from Telecom or Vodafone, there's a good chance they're carrier locked (I don't mention 2degrees because they started after I left NZ and I don't know how they handle their devices). If you purchased the phones from Parallel Imported or some other third party, you should be in good shape.
What phones are you bringing?
***Edit - if you end up with a T-Mobile prepaid SIM, it's possible you won't get 3G service/speeds as they use some different frequency bands for their 3G network, but that's probably fairly low on your list of worries
Fairly certain that it's unlocked.
We shall grab one of these fancy pre-paid SIMs, then!
Thanks, chaps!
That is pretty much exactly the info that we were looking for!
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