Help International Service?

[lb09]

Hello,

My boyfriend is going to be traveling to Mexico soon and he has Virgin Mobile, the prepaid phone plans with an LG Optimus V. Do you all know if he will have service over there? I can't find any direct answers from the Virgin Mobile website or anywhere else...

Is there some kind of tweak or hack or something along those lines that will enable him to have service over there and not get charged for it? Or if he were to call me would that charge me (T-mobile) for accepting a call from over there? Or what is the charge on roaming for Virgin Mobile? According to about.com, Virgin Mobile doesn't even have roaming! :/ I have been researching and I can't find anything very useful.. Anyone know?

 

[Petrah]

Google Voice, GrooveIP. There's a few.

 

[lb09]

Cool, so those will work internationally? And free of charge?

 

[riggerman1]

Yes they will work, however they are internet calling. He will not be able to access any cell signal. Virgin Mobile does not any service in Mexico. If he can access a wifi signal he can use Groveip to call.

 

[MacFett]

There is no Virgin Mobile USA service outside of the USA as you said there is no roaming in or out of the USA. The apps riggerman mention require wifi to use and you can receive calls and text through them provided you have a wifi signal.

 

[hchen42]

Hello,

My boyfriend is going to be traveling to Mexico soon and he has Virgin Mobile, the prepaid phone plans with an LG Optimus V. Do you all know if he will have service over there? I can't find any direct answers from the Virgin Mobile website or anywhere else...

Is there some kind of tweak or hack or something along those lines that will enable him to have service over there and not get charged for it? Or if he were to call me would that charge me (T-mobile) for accepting a call from over there? Or what is the charge on roaming for Virgin Mobile? According to about.com, Virgin Mobile doesn't even have roaming! :/ I have been researching and I can't find anything very useful.. Anyone know?

I was down in Cancun last year (december, 2011). I also had an Optimus V. Sorry to tell you, but there's no service down there.

Now there is an alternative and is using voip calling. This requires wifi connection. Get either sipdroid, grooveip, csipsimple or any voip apps. To get free voip using google voice, I recommend using sipdroid. It's not the best, but it works. I've never use grooveip, but many people have recommend it. cisipsimple has a better interface than sipdroid, but you need sipdroid to set up an account (on pbxes.org) in order to get it to work. Note: sipdroid uses the "main" google account that is tied to the phone when setting up. The other alternative is to locally find calling cards.

If you can live with texting... then use google voice, and text away. Google voice texting requires wifi and it's more reliable than the above voice methods.

 

[lb09]

I was down in Cancun last year (december, 2011). I also had an Optimus V. Sorry to tell you, but there's no service down there.

Now there is an alternative and is using voip calling. This requires wifi connection. Get either sipdroid, grooveip, csipsimple or any voip apps. To get free voip using google voice, I recommend using sipdroid. It's not the best, but it works. I've never use grooveip, but many people have recommend it. cisipsimple has a better interface than sipdroid, but you need sipdroid to set up an account (on pbxes.org) in order to get it to work. Note: sipdroid uses the "main" google account that is tied to the phone when setting up. The other alternative is to locally find calling cards.

If you can live with texting... then use google voice, and text away. Google voice texting requires wifi and it's more reliable than the above voice methods.

Do I need to also download these apps you all mentioned? Or does it work from the app on his phone to my regular phone without the app... ?

 

[hchen42]

Do I need to also download these apps you all mentioned? Or does it work from the app on his phone to my regular phone without the app... ?

He (Optimus V) needs to install the app. Let's say he uses sipdroid. Instead of using the regular "phone app", he uses sipdroid to dial out. It would be just like dialing to a regular US phone number. The recipients are any US numbers (or canada, assuming he uses google voice). This means he can call his parents or anyone as well.

 

[spayced]

I am currently in Austria and I can confirm there is no service. But Sipdroid for calls and google voice for texts work great when I have an internet connection.

I also recommend turning off your radio to conserve battery, since it would otherwise be constantly searching for a signal fruitlessly. You can do that with the hidden *#*#4636#*#* menu.

 

[MacFett]

I also recommend turning off your radio to conserve battery, since it would otherwise be constantly searching for a signal fruitlessly. You can do that with the hidden *#*#4636#*#* menu.

Turning on airplane mode is a little easier.

 

[spayced]

Turning on airplane mode is a little easier.

Except airplane mode turns off wifi. I think you want your phone to keep an eye out for cafe and hotel hot spots so you can use the aforementioned services. You may not be able to charge your device often so the battery savings will help a lot. My only complaint with it is it does not stay off when the phone is reset.

 

[MacFett]

Except airplane mode turns off wifi.

Only until you turn it back on again.

 

[Predrag]

There is a simple reason why VM phones don't work outside the US: they are CDMA only (and the rest of the world uses GSM).

Sipdroid, GrooveIP and similar technically work, but very, very inconsistently. In my experience, GrooveIP is the best of them. The free version works only on WiFi (which is probably all you need), and can only work reasonably well when the WiFi signal is strong enough and no other apps are running in the background.

My biggest and most frequent problem with GrooveIP was the latency (i.e. audio lag). Often times, the conversation felt like the other person is on the Moon -- their voice would be delayed by several seconds.

GrooveIP integrates very well into the OS, which makes it much easier to use existing phone features (phone dialer, contacts, etc) to dial out through it.

Wherever the WiFi coverage is uninterrupted and good, GrooveIP will essentially provide a solution. As soon as the WiFi signal is lost, there is no connection. Unfortunately, WiFi is much more fickle and less robust than mobile phone signal.