Purchasing prepaid SIM for mobile phone

ruthie808

hi eff
check out this thread too for info on mobile phones

Use of Mobile phone.

hope it works, i've not posted a link to a thread before...!

shere

>>Phones are "locked" in the states to prevent you from taking your phone >>to other providers. The phones are sold to the providers with certain >>information already preprogrammed within them.

Thats why phones are locked in other countries. The concept of locking is not just a US thing. The cell company basically subsidises the cost of the handset and for payback the handset is locked.

There is usually nothing programmed into the phones which you cannot get off. Yes you may have a special menu but pop in your BSNL sim and you get a special BSNL menu to access BSNL added value services.

>>It searches out a tower belonging to A
If it can't find it it goes to company B
Then C and so on.

Yes so how would that change if your phone was unlocked ? Put your network search to auto and it will do a similar job.

People unlock phones across the world, I fail to see why this would be a problem in the US.

shere

Not all phones are locked. In the UK many contract phones are unlocked as you are tied to a 12 or 18 month contract so the company will get some money out of you via line rental to cover the handset subsidy. Sometimes you are lucky and pay as you go phones also come unlocked.

What functions will you lose by unlocking ?
Over the years I have lost count of the number of phones I have unlocked and I do not recall losing functionality. Yes you may have to manually amend your GPRS / WAP settting but is not a big deal and takes minutes to do. You do not lose the ability to get OTA updates, I am always getting OTA updates to my nokia even though I unlocked it and have used it with various other UK sim cards, a few Indian sim cards and even a pakistani sim card. What if your contract phone comes unlocked do you never receive an OTA update ?

As someone else has pointed out all you do by unlocking the phone is remove the sim restriction. Nothing else happens to your phone.

Elana1945

Anyone knows where in Delhi would be the best place to go to get a SIM card for my cellphone?

Just to make sure I understood well from what I read on the forume, I need a passport and a passport photo to buy a SIM card?

That's going to give me a new local number from India and I'll have to just buy prepaid cards for the cell?

I am affraid when I'll get there, something just won't work with my cell cause I don't know how to do it, or I buy the wrong thing there o O

Elana

Aishah

Mod Note: This thread has been moved out of Chai and Chat into Electronics Forum.

Elana, provided your phone is not locked, you will be fine with the new SIM card. Many places are selling these cards - where you are staying the people there can help you locate the nearest one. If you scroll to the bottom of the page there is an excellent thread re buying Sim cards etc. And despite the warning re Airtel from the 2004 thread I would recommend that one myself as having probably one of the wider coverages all over India. I have an Airtel SIM myself and it will often work where my BSNL (govt. one) won't (and vice versa sometimes as well!)

__________________
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

Haylo

Airtel charge Rs 99 for a SIM card and a Rs 295 for making it "lifetime" (about 14 years right now are guaranteed for Delhi, which is as long as their licence runs)

The advantage of having a lifetime SIM (apart from it not running out on you) is that you are not forced to lose part of each credit in service charges (extending life of SIM contract) and it all goes towards calltime.

Plenty of places sell them, although the guys in the Airtel booth in Arrivals at Delhi airport told me (erroneously) that Airtel only sell six month prepaid SIMs. Knowing better, I just walked away at that point. I opted for a main office, they are all on the Airtel India website. Not easy to spot at first because they link is "Relationship Centres" (Bloody marketing, what's wrong with "shop" or "office"? )

Yes, and something with your address on. They accepted a UK address in my case.

Yes, that's right.

Because I wanted to carry on using my UK phone to recieve messages and calls, I just bought another basic phone at the same time as my SIM card, it only cost me Rs 1500 and they set it all up for me and made sure it was working before I took it away.

You might want to check that your phone works on the same band as those used in India, I know UK phones do, but that some North American ones are not multiple band and don't work abroad.

If you post saying what phone you have, someone kind person on here might be able to tell you.