Planning a trip to Ireland from the US with my cell phones. What are my cheapest options?

Question

I have a Sprint Treo and a Cingular 8525 cell phone. Will either phone work there? Do I need to do something to make them work, like a new prepaid SIM Card for the Cingular phone? Do I need to be concerned with Roaming Charges? Should I just rent one when I get there?

Answer 1

I would agree with the person above, and say get a meteor chip, it will only cost you 20 Euro with 20euro free credit already on it. I have so many of those chips, as I always lose them when I leave Ireland and have to replace them when I return and because they're free I don't care..

It's got really good coverage, I'm from a very remote part of the tip of south west Ireland and the  reception I get round there is brilliant. You can get them from any carphone warehouse in Ireland.

Answer 2

If it's still the same you get change in the states for getting a call I would think you will get change for gettiing a call here if your with a US company..... I would buy pay as you go phone here spend about £50 and you get £10 free. but i think that would be floored cos ppl won't have your UK number. unless you can use your US sim cards in the UK phone. like orange you can make a call from the UK to the US it 25p a min.... but with other companies it's like 150 per minutes..........

Answer 3

dont know, but a mate of mine went the other way (from ireland to the states) back in september '07. and his bill was £700 for 2 months. which is roughly about $1500. so i would expect similar charges if you were coming.

my advice, would be to buy a phone card and just use that

Answer 4

I'd say the same, unless you have to keep your US number for some reason, just make sure your phone is a GSM and not CDMA and that it has 900/1800 frequency on it, then buy a SIM card. If you don't want to be too choosy, there's a Vodafone shop at Dublin airport, and operators at this stage are pretty much aware that their numbers are as disposable as orange skin, so don't even bother about keeping the SIM for an eventual next trip.

Answer 5

Both seem to be triband and so should work in Ireland (we use standard GSM 900/1800 MHz). To use an Irish SIM you'll have to make sure your US network hasn't restricted this option (or get the unlocking PIN). You can pick up a prepay SIM very easily in any Mobile Phone shop (cell phone) and many newsagents in Ireland.

Cheapest is a Meteor chip, which is €20 and includes €20 credit (i.e. effectively free).

You may want to get a 3G network, and that is run by either Vodafone or 3. I don't know prices for these.

Roaming charges are very high if you're using a non-EU phone here (anything up to about $5/minute). For EU phones, the roaming charges are capped at 47c/minute - so you can use an Irish SIM anywhere in the EU.

Answer 6

I'd say your best option is to buy an Irish sim card when you get here, you can usually get them for like 10 euro with 10 euro credit, so, really, you don't pay to have a number. That way you can receive call for free (people in the US can call you with some VOIP system at very competitive rates), and make local calls at very affordable rates. The main cell phone company are Vodafone, O2 and Meteor and they have stores pretty much everywhere!