Cell phone rental for foreign travel

[Kati Compton]

I'm going to Australia in December, and would like to have a cell phone for the duration. The trip is about a week and a half. Does anyone have suggestions on cell phone renting?

[Mike Temporale]

Is your current provider GSM? You might be able to take your existing phone with you, and just insert a SIM from a provider in Australia.

[freitasm]

If you have a GSM phone, then just bring it to Australia/New Zealand. in Australia you should be able to roam on Vodafone, Optus and depending on which city Telstra. Check with your operator in the US first. When bringing a mobile to Australia/New Zealand remember we use 900MHz here, so make sure your phone is at least a triband.

If you want to rent a phone, then just look for the red Vodafone stores in the Sydney airport or in town (I suppose you're getting into Sydney first). You should also be able to rent the phone without a SIM if you want to bring your own SIM card - but remember to enable roaming in your account before leaving the US.

If you have a CDMA phone you could probably roam on Telstra (this network operates both CDMA and GSM networks in Australia). Again check roaming agreements with your operator first.

[freitasm]

Check this one out http://www.vodafonerental.com.au/ for more information, including rates and locations for collection and drop off.

I personally recommend using Vodafone - not because they send me all the cool Pocket PC and Smartphones, but because they have a good service and roaming.

[freitasm]

Just reading the Vodafone rental page, and it's so funny. It comes with multiple English "versions", for US, Australia/NZ and European use:

"Hire a cellular phone / Rent a mobile phone "

:lol: :lol:

[Mike Temporale]

Is mobile phone rental a common thing? I don't know if any provider around here offers rental. And what about getting a pre-paid SIM, I don't think I've seen any provider selling that.

[freitasm]

It's common down under for travellers. Getting a prepaid SIM will cost you at least $25 dollars, plus the topups. And whatever you don't use is wasted unless you come back later...

[Kati Compton]

Cool - thanks for the advice.

I don't currently have GSM - in another thread here I'm debating what to do about a new cell phone. ;) Part of my problem is that in my area T-Mobile is ROAMING, which sucks, so I may do Verizon.

But that's off-topic.

Great - lots of recommendations for Vodafone - I'll likely do that, then. Thanks!

[Mike Temporale]

I was in my local provders store today, picking up another Pay-As-You-Go card for my wife, and decided to ask about buying a SIM. Since I have never heard of anyone doing it in North America, I fully expected him to say that they don't do that. But, that's not the case. They do sell SIM cards for $25 CDN plus airtime. The sales guy also commented that this is a large part of their summertime business.

So there you go. It's not just a Europe thing. North American carriers do it too. :D