Need to travel to Europe w/ kids and these phones...

dhbuckley · May 29, 2017

Hi. I am traveling to Europe, likely The Netherlands and Portugal and we are unfortunately slave to the coverage of Vilerizon. If we want to use our phones/plans it will be $30/day on top of already crazy $ for the service. ($10 per line/day). The other Vilerizon "solution" is crazy $ for ludicrously small amounts of data.

I use a Droid Turbo with Marshmallow, kids are on iPhone 6S and 5S respectively, latest iOS

What are any suggestions at all for using these phones so as to have a reasonable amount of data and stay in touch?

Can we use secondary SIMS? Can I buy 3 cheap unlocked phones and prepay on T-Mobile or some other carrier? I don't so much care about speed as I do about connectivity for messaging and reasonable cost. Would like to be able to have some calling minutes as well to use in Europe and less important, back to USA.

I'm open to any ideas anyone may have.

Many thanks and be well, all.

David

mikedt · May 29, 2017

First thing I can think of, do you all need to be online all the time with your phones? Presumably your hotels all have WiFi, as will restaurants, malls, public transport etc

dhbuckley · May 29, 2017

mikedt said:
First thing I can think of, do you all need to be online all the time with your phones? Presumably your hotels all have WiFi, as will restaurants, malls, public transport etc

Thanks for reply!

Not necessarily needed but desirable; past experience states that Wifi is less ubiquitous in Europe than US and I really do want continuous messaging capability without need to connect w/ passwords and login dialogs.

mikedt · May 29, 2017

If the Verizon devices you've got are all locked, they won't be able to use local carrier prepaid SIMs. So next option might be cheap unlocked devices which can. There's plenty of cheap MVNOs in the EU with good value data packages and international calling rates, like Lebara and Lycamobile. Which I've used when visiting the UK. But to use their SIMs, the phone must be unlocked.

BTW a friend of mine from UK is currently in Seattle for a few weeks, and he's just using WiFi.

dhbuckley · May 30, 2017

Ideas for unlocked phones to purchase in US and use in Europe? Need to buy 3...

Any experience getting Verizon to unlock phones? What are best practices?

Clementine_3 · May 30, 2017

Call Verizon, I think all of their branded phones are 'world phones' and unlocked. In theory you should be able to get SIM cards, if you can match bands. You need to know what bands/radios are on the phones and what is needed where you're going. The CDMA will be useless but the LTE may be doable.

I quickly checked willmyphonework.net for a Moto Turbo using Netherlands Vodaphone. 2G and 3G will work and 4G (LTE) may:

2G: CdmaOne,850MHz,900MHz,1800MHz,1900MHz
3G: CDMA2000,EVDO,850MHz,900MHz,1900MHz,2100MHz
4G LTE: Band13-700MHz,Band4-AWS,Band3-1800MHz,Band2-1900MHz,Band7-2600MHz" title="" id="device-frequencies" style="box-sizing: border-box;">

Motorola DROID Turbo 2G: 900MHz,1800MHz
3G: 2100MHz
4G LTE: Band20-800MHz,Band3-1800MHz,Band7-2600MHz" title="" id="carrier-frequencies" style="box-sizing: border-box;">

Netherlands Vodafone
2G Network:

3G Network:

4G LTE Network:

900MHz, 1800MHz
2100MHz
Band3-1800MHz, Band7-2600MHz

dhbuckley · May 30, 2017

Thanks for "Googling this for me"...! I think the iPhones will be the wonkier ones. I had hoped not to call Vilerizon but I think it's in my future...

Clementine_3 said:
Call Verizon, I think all of their branded phones are 'world phones' and unlocked. In theory you should be able to get SIM cards, if you can match bands. You need to know what bands/radios are on the phones and what is needed where you're going. The CDMA will be useless but the LTE may be doable.

I quickly checked willmyphonework.net for a Moto Turbo using Netherlands Vodaphone. 2G and 3G will work and 4G (LTE) may:

2G: CdmaOne,850MHz,900MHz,1800MHz,1900MHz
3G: CDMA2000,EVDO,850MHz,900MHz,1900MHz,2100MHz
4G LTE: Band13-700MHz,Band4-AWS,Band3-1800MHz,Band2-1900MHz,Band7-2600MHz" title="" id="device-frequencies" style="box-sizing: border-box;">

Motorola DROID Turbo 2G: 900MHz,1800MHz
3G: 2100MHz
4G LTE: Band20-800MHz,Band3-1800MHz,Band7-2600MHz" title="" id="carrier-frequencies" style="box-sizing: border-box;">

Netherlands Vodafone
2G Network:

3G Network:

4G LTE Network:

900MHz, 1800MHz
2100MHz
Band3-1800MHz, Band7-2600MHz

Need to travel to Europe w/ kids and these phones...

dhbuckley

Well-Known Member

mikedt

你好

dhbuckley

Well-Known Member

mikedt

你好

dhbuckley

Well-Known Member

Clementine_3

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dhbuckley

Well-Known Member

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