Using your American G1 in Europe

[dallasfoto]

Has anyone used their G1 with T Mobile, from here in the US, in Europe? I am going to the Netherlands in May and want to know if I have to jump through hoops to make it work. I am pretty sure Deutsch Telecom is the system there.

[ae10]

as with any phone that uses a simcard, you'll either need to call t-mobile customer support and get international roaming added to your plan (this can be expensive), or a cheaper solution when traveling to another country is to buy a cheap phone that's unlocked (if your phone isn't already unlocked) and then buy a prepaid sim card in the country you are visting.

if you only plan on making local calls in the country you are visiting than buying a sim card in the visiting country is much cheaper.

if you plan on making calls back to America then it's probably better to get international roaming added to your plan for a month. just be aware that calling back home to America can cost you about $3 per minute. If you buy a euro sim card and keep calling to America your sim card will run out of minutes very fast and it will be a head ache constantly having to go buy new sim cards.

[ae10]

this is completly unrelated, but if you don't travel much make sure you call your banks/cc companies and let them know you'll be out of the country. they WILL turn off your cc's if they see charges in another country.

[dallasfoto]

I will be in the Netherlands for one week in May and after reading about this issue, I am going to turn off my 3G receiver and use available wifi to text and email back to the States. I am not paying them 3 bucks a minute for telephone conversation. Email and IMs are fine for one week.

[lkview]

Hey dallasfoto,
I still have my ancient G1 .. waiting for my tmobile plan to expire! Am going to Europe later this month. Did that work for you to turn off the 3G receiver? Did you get any other charges?

Agree it would be sufficient to just use wifi. Thanks for any tips!