Around the World
Cingular & European Tri-Band?
Hello,
I live in the Marshall Islands and our cells here just switched to the GSM 900 band. I want to get a phone that I will be able to use in the US with Cingular prepaid.
I understand the cingular network is 850/1900. If I get a tri-band that is 900/1800/1900 will I be able to use it with cingular? What will I be losing by not having the 850 band.
Thanks!
Shawn
I live in the Marshall Islands and our cells here just switched to the GSM 900 band. I want to get a phone that I will be able to use in the US with Cingular prepaid.
I understand the cingular network is 850/1900. If I get a tri-band that is 900/1800/1900 will I be able to use it with cingular? What will I be losing by not having the 850 band.
Thanks!
Shawn
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It's not advisable to use a non 850 band phone on Cingular. You can get away with it in some states though. You are better of using a tmobile prepaid sim, since they are a 1900 ONLY network.
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The problem with T-Moblie is their coverage isnt as good as cingular's Cingular can sell a SIM card for around 50$ i think and Cingular has a larger network which you will be able to go more places than with T-Moblie
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In America there are very few 850 towers. If I recall, there are a few in California and a few in Maryland. I'm in Iowa and my phone without 850 works perfectly. Check out www.zedge.no for more info, can't remember how to find it but somewhere on there you can look up the frequencies that exist in certain areas(might have to search by zip code).
Hope that helps,
Link
Hope that helps,
Link
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When you get to the US, you can go into a cingular store and see what towers in the area use 850, that way you know if it'll work in that area. Other than that, try to visit mobiledia.com.. There's a link to tower locations. Not sure how current it is, but it shows the frequency those towers use...
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Cingular uses the 1900 band in the major cities, but the rural areas use the 850 band, and most, if not all of Cingular's Indiana coverage is 850. Cingular's roaming partner in Indiana, Centennial Wireless, only uses the 850 band, but that carrier has the 1900 band on their phones as well. Since the Marshall Islands is 900, as the original poster mentioned, it looks like a quad-band phone will be needed as I haven't seen an 850/900/1900 tri-band phone. I've only seen 850/1800/1900 tri-band phones for the USA & 900/1800/1900 tri-band phones for outside of the USA. If you want the best GSM coverage, make sure you get a phone with the 850 band on it. The best advice is a quad-band phone.
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1-888-333-6651 if you call that number and tell the rep the specs of your phone and the area you are traveling to then s/he call pull up a thing that can show weither your phone will work.
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you can do the same thing @ gsmworld.com just click the country and it tells u the bands they use, and if your carrier has a roaming agreement with someone in that country as well as show coverage maps.
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Shawn are you buying the phone in the US or Marshell Islands? If you are buying the phone in the US the newer Razr phone is a quad band phone that carries all 4 bands and in answer to your question you will lose very lil most places here are in the 1900 band but feel free to call customer support 1-888-333-6651
or visit www.cingular.com
or visit www.cingular.com
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