Whenever I’m overseas for an extended period, I like to have a local phone. Whenever I get to a country I’ll need a local number in, I buy a SIM card at a local shop and put it in my travel phone. This way locals can call me, and I can make local calls for a reasonable price.
I’ll also keep my regular phone with me so I can be reached by phone and text from the US. But it’s expensive to use my iPhone overseas, even with an international plan activated for the duration of the trip. And international data usage can be the source of nightmare phone bills.
For the last 6 years, I’ve been using a pretty, um, basic device. It can text and make phone calls, but that’s it. No web surfing or email on this old school celly.
On my upcoming trip to China, however, I’ll be sporting my old iPhone 3Gs as my overseas phone. As of Sunday April 8, AT&T has graciously offered to unlock that expensive device I already paid them for. Yes, you read that right, AT&T is now allowing me to do what I want with a phone I already own (provided, of course, that I have fulfilled the contract it was purchased on, and signed-up again for a subsequent contract.)
In order to unlock the old phone, you need to call AT&T and request an unlock code. It can take up to a week to work its way through the system, supposedly. It took about 5 days for mine to unlock. Asking for tier 2 service may make it happen faster.
Having a local smart phone should be a real benefit when traveling. And since this one is already set up with my email account, web bookmarks and other apps, it should be pretty easy to put into service. Just put that SIM card in and go. I’m expecting that this will be particularly valuable in a country where I can’t speak or read the language at all.