iPhone in Europe?

>The alternative is to rent a phone from a private vendor here or in
>Italy. I did that in 1999, and two weeks cost over $200 including
>airtime; we made maybe two calls daily, never locally, and typically
>to call/receive home & office.

As I've written in other posts, I was just in London for a week. The ubiquitous chain Carphone Warehouse will sell you an unlocked phone for $25, along with a SIM with a minimum of $20 of time on it. Alternatively, you can take many American phones to a London market and get one unlocked for $15 or so. Companies like Orange will then sell you a British SIM for nothing more than the cost of the service. You can get plans that let you call the US for as little as 10¢ per minute, and incoming calls are free.

Once you have an unlocked phone, you can buy local SIMs in every country you visit very reasonably. Since I'm a self-employed architect who also teaches at universities that aren't going to pay for my cell, I doubt I'll ever pay AT&T $90 an hour to use my iPhone in Europe.

John

I was on with AT&T earlier this week. What they told me was:

(i) the phone will work (at least, as a phone) in Europe. In the countries I checked, unless I took the international calling plan, phone time would be $1.29/minute (Germany, Netherlands). (ii) taking their international calling plan reduced cel usage costs to 99 cents/minute.

I didn't ask about data - emails, web etc. Ken Marcus

We took the cheapest pre-paid Nokia from Australia during our four-month
motorcycle trip thru' Western Europe. Picked up a new SIM-card in northern
Holland. Bought pre-paid Orange with call roaming and only re-pre-paid
again once as we rode thru' Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Italy,
Switzerland and the UK. Orange worked better than our four main providers in
Oz: Telstra, Optus, Vodaphone and AT & T. (The latter seriously sucks...
and Vodaphone is proving problematic... .)

Looking forward to iPhone here, tho' frankly, my iBook and MacBook have
proven more useful, using Skype, on the road, than any mobile I've used
crossing three continents.

Paul,
W. Australia

On Jul 10, 2007, at 5:57 AM, Shawn King wrote:

>> Does anyone know
>> if AT&T will offer to "activate" or whatever an iPhone so it can be
>> used in Europe, of course for a fee, so travelers can use it there?
>
> When David Pogue took his iPhone to Italy, AT&T would allow it to do
> International Roaming at a charge of $3.00/minute.

How about Canada? I'm going to be in Vancouver next week. The last
time I was there, I was able to use Rogers Wireless with my Cingular
phone.

i've been with att/cingular through the changes and since 2001. i travel to italy every year to visit family and stunningly, my old nokia 6200 has always had service there. call charges were around $1.29/min so i just used sms texting (25¢ each) to stay in touch locally. i had not bought the roaming plan.

just activated my new iPhone yesterday and was told that it too was "quad band" and would work in italy/europe. i'll be going in 3 weeks so i'll find out if it's true (i never believe the att sales people). they quoted me the same prices unless i bought the intl roaming plan ($5.99/mo), which would reduce the costs to 99¢/min.

still plan on using sms texting primarily, but am curious as to what other services will be available. will check back in if this thread is still active.

~c

Paul Bradstreet wrote:
> [sinp of Europe Cell information] Orange worked better than our four main providers in
> Oz: Telstra, Optus, Vodaphone and AT & T. (The latter seriously sucks...
> and Vodaphone is proving problematic... .)

Why I'd bet that AT&T in OZ had some sort of corporate tie in to the AT&T in the US at some point in its initial history, is there any relationship now?

Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_oujBWGsUU
The 75 second history of Telecom in the US for the last 30 years. :)

And this skips SunCom.

David Ross

>Bought pre-paid Orange with call roaming and only re-pre-paid
>again once as we rode thru' Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Italy,

Unless conditions have changed, you'll save money by getting a new SIM in each country, and SIMS are usually free now.

>Switzerland and the UK. Orange worked better than our four main providers in
>Oz: Telstra, Optus, Vodaphone and AT & T. (The latter seriously sucks...
>and Vodaphone is proving problematic... .)

I don't know about Oz, but comparing British service to US service, the British service has many fewer interruptions and sounds much better. But that's because they use a signal strength that isn't allowed in the US. We don't really know yet if all that microwave radiation can be damaging. I know that when I hold my iPhone with with the cell and WiFi antenna against the meat of my thumb, I feel it, in a tingling there. And if I use the iPhone a long time, I still feel that 12 to 24 hours later.

John

On 7/12/07 5:53 AM, "Mike Cohen" <mike3kgmail.com> wrote:

> How about Canada? I'm going to be in Vancouver next week. The last
> time I was there, I was able to use Rogers Wireless with my Cingular
> phone.

You can roam on the Rogers network but you'd have to contact AT&T to see how
much they would charge per minute.

PS: Enjoy my old home town. :)
--
Shawn King
Host/Executive Producer
Your Mac Life
http://www.yourmaclifeshow.com

On 7/13/07 04:34 AM, "John Massengale" <johnmassengale.com> wrote:

> I know that when I hold my iPhone with with the cell and WiFi antenna against
> the meat of my thumb, I feel it, in a tingling there. And if I use the iPhone
> a long time, I still feel that 12 to 24 hours later.

That's nerve pressure. There's a rather enthusiastic nerve junction there,
(my "hobby" involves using such things to cause extreme pain), and constant
pressure on it from a narrow source will make it tingle. If you hit it hard
enough, your entire hand will spasm.

Wi-Fi and other such things are basically microwaves. If they were strong
enough to notice, you'd feel them as heat. I can tell you from unfortunate
personal experience that at high strengths, i.e. from things like B-1B
bombers, it can make you very warm indeed. But tingling sounds more like you
need to think about relaxing your grip a tish, or holding it slightly
different.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

Some more info about the iPhone in Europe...

cheers... -Adam


--- begin forwarded text

From: Clinton MacDonald
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:35:05 +0200

Friends:

As your roving reporter on the scene, I wish to inform you of iPhone
use in Europe. In short, it works!

On holiday, my family and I visited Barcelona Spain, followed by a
Mediterranean cruise. To prepare, I called AT&T's customer service to
activate my $6/month international roaming plan (new subscribers will
need to go to a higher support level). You can end the upgrade once
you return to the US.

In Barcelona, I gave it a try. To make a call to the US, I first
dialed 001, then the ten digit phone number (by the way, the Address
Book is useless, here -- I had to memorize the number, then type it on
the keypad). Calls went through clearly and easily. Hurrah!

The carriers were Moviestar and Vodaphone. I even received SMS
messages informing me that I had to dial the "001." the only thing
that does not work is Visual Voicemail (not surprising).

Now, the answer you have all been awaiting: data/EDGE: it just works.
And it's almost as slow as I the US (I didn't test throughout).

Better still, this email is being sent via EDGE... from aboard a
cruiseship at sea! Really, really slow at times, but good enough for
email and low-bandwidth sites.

Best wishes,
Clint
(who wonders how much next month's bill will be)

Sent from my iPhone

--- end forwarded text



--- begin forwarded text


From: Clinton MacDonald
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:45:13 -0700

Friends:

Now that I have returned home, I thought I would follow up on my
iPhone in Europe experiences. Here are some observations:

[_] as reported, phone usage, Visual Voicemail, EDGE networking just
work in most European cities (Rome, Nice, Amalfi, etc.)

[_] MoviStar was the most common carrier I encountered, but I did see
others

[_] EDGE in Europe is significantly slower than EDGE in Lubbock, Texas

[_] nothing can freeze up MobileMail tighter than a flaky EDGE
connection (requiring a force quit of MobileMail) -- this happened often

[_] it was almost impossible to delete emails over EDGE from Europe (I
wonder why?)

[_] the Weather widget is magically useful while traveling, even over
a slow EDGE connection

[_] so is the World Clock widget

[_] while traveling, my iPhone was a lifeline for communicating with
"home base"; phone calls were clear, and my ability to use email saved
a few "crises" back here in Lubbock

[_] onboard the cruise ship, Internet connections were either
$0.50/minute (for Internet stations in the ship's library) or $10/hour
for wireless connection to a laptop; only Windows is supported, and
then only in designated "hot spots" throughout the ship

[_] why, oh why, are there *two* places where one must set the time
zone (Settings > General > Date & Time: "Time Zone" and under
"Calendar > Time Zone")?

[_] Walter Mossberg has also mentioned iPhone use in Europe:

<http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20070719/using-the-iphone-overseas-for-data-purposes/>

Best wishes,
Clint
(who did not really understand the phrase "jet-lag" until this trip!)

--- end forwarded text

>In Barcelona, I gave it a try. To make a call to the US, I first
>dialed 001, then the ten digit phone number (by the way, the Address
>Book is useless, here -- I had to memorize the number, then type it on
>the keypad). Calls went through clearly and easily. Hurrah!

The following address book settings work in the US and in every European country I've tried:

plus sign, country code, local code, number

In other words,

+1 212 555 1212

The iPhone will make that +1 (212) 555 1212, and that works just fine.

The English equivalent of that for a London number would be

+44 20 7555 1212

That will work in England or in the US for calling England. Therefore you don't have to switch between 011 44 20 7555 1212 and 020 7555 1212, depending on whether you're in England or elsewhere.

John

At 10:33 -0700 UTC, on 2007-08-02, John Massengale wrote:

>>In Barcelona, I gave it a try. To make a call to the US, I first
>>dialed 001, then the ten digit phone number (by the way, the Address
>>Book is useless, here -- I had to memorize the number, then type it on
>>the keypad). Calls went through clearly and easily. Hurrah!
>
> The following address book settings work in the US and in every European
>country I've tried:
>
> plus sign, country code, local code, number
>
> In other words,
>
> +1 212 555 1212
>
> The iPhone will make that +1 (212) 555 1212, and that works just fine.

Yeah, that syntax (an ISO standard even?) appears to be pretty commonly
supported. My antique Nokia (5 year old plain dumb mobile) understands it too.

Might not have been clear to everyone: also works when you already are in
that country and or area code. So you really only need to enter all phone
numbers in that format once and they can be dialed succesfully from anywhere.


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

>> plus sign, country code, local code, number
>>
>> In other words,
>>
>> +1 212 555 1212
>>
>> The iPhone will make that +1 (212) 555 1212, and that works just fine.
>
>Yeah, that syntax (an ISO standard even?) appears to be pretty commonly
>supported. My antique Nokia (5 year old plain dumb mobile) understands it too.
>
>Might not have been clear to everyone: also works when you already are in
>that country and or area code. So you really only need to enter all phone
>numbers in that format once and they can be dialed succesfully from anywhere.

Well, I did say that next, but it's true that while many Europeans know this system, most Americans don't -- and when they do know they tend to think it only works in Europe, not here.

Re your Nokia, does the phone have anything to do with the system, or is everything done by the service provider at its end?

John
 

> The following address book settings work in the US and in every
> European country I've tried:
>
> plus sign, country code, local code, number
>

This convention should work with practically any modern mobile phone.

Note, however, that there is (at least) one exception with regards to
dropping the leading zero from the area code when using this format,
and that is Italy. So, if you'd like to call the restaurant "Sora
Lella" in Rome (to pick a not-so-arbitrary example), whose number is
06 686 16 01, you'd still keep that leading zero when adding this
number to your phone's address book: +39 06 686 16 01 (instead of +39
6 686 16 01).


Regards,

Jochen.

> Well, I did say that next, but it's true that while many Europeans know this system, most Americans don't -- and when they do know they tend to think it only works in Europe, not here. ...

While America is a big island, surrounded by bigger oceans, the island
mentality does still shine through. Internet will eventually break it
down for all of us ?

George

&
At 03:53 -0700 UTC, on 2007-08-03, John Massengale wrote:

>>; plus sign, country code, local code, number [...]
>>
>>My antique Nokia (5 year old plain dumb mobile) understands it too.[...]
>
> does the phone have anything to do with the system, or is everything done
>by the service provider at its end?

Well, to be honest, I'm mostly clueless about the workings of telephony, so I
really don't know. But when I think about it for a moment, it does seem that,
for the phone itself to make that magic happen, it would need to know where
it is, wouldn't it? It'd need to know when to omit the international, country
or area code.

So I'd imagine it just blindly dials the entire number, and then somewhere at
the switchboard it is understood how to parse that. (Would also explain
Jochen's note that it doesn't work in Italy.)

Would that make sense?

(Alternatively, in theory it could be that the phone first does figure out
where it is. Through a dial tone signal or something. But that seems way too
elaborate. We need that sort of complicated magic on computer networks, but
the success of telephony seems to be based more on simplicity.)


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

On Aug 3, 2007, at 10:21 AM, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

> Well, to be honest, I'm mostly clueless about the workings of
> telephony, so I
> really don't know. But when I think about it for a moment, it does
> seem that,
> for the phone itself to make that magic happen, it would need to
> know where
> it is, wouldn't it? It'd need to know when to omit the
> international, country
> or area code.

I too would expect the smarts to be in the switching, not in the phone.

As a non-cellular example, on Vonage I can dial numbers within the
360 area code with 7 digits, 10 digits, or 11 including a leading 1.
Vonage figures it out (some forms cause a delay, especially using 7
digits when the first three are equal to an area code somewhere).
The phone doesn't do the thinking--the dialing works with dumb phones.

When I dial the same numbers on Qwest, I have to dial the paid calls
with a leading 1, but can dial the (few) free ones with either 7 or
10 digits (that found its way into the switches when Qwest planned to
overlay 360 and the rest of western Washington with another code--
that plan has been dropped).

Nostalgia trivia time: when I lived in Ann Arbor, MI, in the early
1970s, there were several 66x (x != 6) prefixes, along with some
other more recently added ones. The 66x numbers were switched on
ancient 5 digit step-by-step switches (probably "panel"; perhaps
"Stroger"). The advent of 7 digit local numbers nationwide had led
to the creation of NOrmandy for those 5 digit numbers--NOrmandy
became 66 when the letters went away. In actual fact, if you were
calling from a 66x number to another one, you could start with just
one 6, or any number of 6s--the barnacle that was put in front of the
old switches just looked at the first digit, and sent non-6
elsewhere. Then it discarded 6s until it saw something else, which
activated the first selector. (The barnacle also converted tone to
pulse within the 66x equipment, and likely handled first digit = 0.)

   --John

On 4-Aug-2007, at 02:53, John W Baxter wrote:
> As a non-cellular example, on Vonage I can dial numbers within the
> 360 area code with 7 digits, 10 digits, or 11 including a leading 1.
> Vonage figures it out (some forms cause a delay, especially using 7
> digits when the first three are equal to an area code somewhere).
> The phone doesn't do the thinking--the dialing works with dumb phones.

Vonage intentionally made their system smart. This has nothing to do
with how cellphones dial or store their numbers. I suspect that the
cellphone gets its country location from the local tower and that
tells it whether to dial +33 1 44 55 66 77 as 11 digits or not, or
telephone switches are all smart enough to interpret the +33 (or +44,
+52, +1, etc) correctly on their own.

> When I dial the same numbers on Qwest, I have to dial the paid calls
> with a leading 1, but can dial the (few) free ones with either 7 or
> 10 digits

And that is a PUC issue. Regular phone companies have to conform
their dialing to what the PUC specifies, which is normally that all
tool calls require a leading '1' and that in areas with multiple area
codes 10 digit dialing is required for all regular calls. However,
this can vary from location to location.

The reasoning that I can't dial 7 digits from my 303 area code number
to another 303 area code number is that it makes the overlay 720 area
code less desirable, so it is better to be a minor annoyance to
everyone than to make life easier for the majority of people and have
a consumer preference for one area code over another.

> 66x (x != 6)

When I was in high school my Headmaster's home phone number was,
appropriately enough, on a 666 exchange.

am 04.08.2007 11:03 Uhr schrieb tidbits-talktidbits.com unter
tidbits-talktidbits.com:

> Well, to be honest, I'm mostly clueless about the workings of telephony, so I
> really don't know. But when I think about it for a moment, it does seem that,
> for the phone itself to make that magic happen, it would need to know where
> it is, wouldn't it? It'd need to know when to omit the international, country
> or area code.

Well, a mobile phone (cell phone) does always know where it is. As soon as
you switch on the phone it connects to the nearest transmitter station and
logs in to the provider. As you move around the phone logs in to the
transmitter it can receive best.

When a mobile phone is switched on it constantly exchanges data with the
transmitter stations. This way a switched-on mobile phone can be located in
an emergency as long as it is switched on.

Udo

On Aug 6, 2007, at 9:25 AM, Google Kreme wrote:

> On 4-Aug-2007, at 02:53, John W Baxter wrote:
>> As a non-cellular example, on Vonage I can dial numbers within the
>> 360 area code with 7 digits, 10 digits, or 11 including a leading 1.
>> Vonage figures it out (some forms cause a delay, especially using 7
>> digits when the first three are equal to an area code somewhere).
>> The phone doesn't do the thinking--the dialing works with dumb
>> phones.
>
> Vonage intentionally made their system smart. This has nothing to do
> with how cellphones dial or store their numbers. I suspect that the
> cellphone gets its country location from the local tower and that
> tells it whether to dial +33 1 44 55 66 77 as 11 digits or not, or
> telephone switches are all smart enough to interpret the +33 (or +44,
> +52, +1, etc) correctly on their own.

Agreed about Vonage.

That would work, "Google". Which way is the network more reliable
though--having the cell system trust all the phone makers (OK, "all"
isn't very many any more) to get things right on all their models
(all is a lot in this part), or having the system do it?

My hunch would be that the smarts ought to be centralized (so that
all handsets fail at once when a dunce at the carrier makes a
mistake ;-) ).

   --John (who has chatted with a former switch tech who once locked
up all of greater Portland--US West and other carriers) by making a
switch change that US West engineers told him to)