T-Mobile SDA for use in Asia

[rmundo99]

I'm thinking of buying a SDA for use in Asia and buying new SIMM cards in each country that I travel. Any upsides or downside comments on doing this?

[Crossblade]

IT;s quad-band - go for it ;)

But make sure that all countries you go to have GSM carriers :)) I guess most will ;)

[smartphoneguru]

quad-band GSM means it is world phone and can roam in all continents !

[Unregistered]

quad-band GSM means it is world phone and can roam in all continents !

which other t-mobile phones are world phones?

[unregistered]

You need to have the SDA unlocked first. You have to meet T-Mobile's criteria for requesting a sim unlock. They used to require 90 days of continuous, uninterrupted service, that you be current on your payments and not past due, even by a day or two. That was a "non-negotiable." I doubt it has changed. The rule was meant to prevent dealer fraud and to keep the costs from being passed on to joe-consumer. (Given the 100s of thousands of cell phones stolen from retail stores or diverted in shipping by hijackers and port theives annually, this prevents unscrupulous dealers and dealer's employees from unlocking stolen property and selling for as much as they can get.)

Then a new phone number and voicemail for each prepaid sim card you get. Different tariffs depending on what country you travel in. Also if you're using a foreign sim, if you have roaming difficulties, you need to contact the carrier of the foreign sim card. Don't assume THEIR customer care department reps speak fluent English, much less America-speak. When you do that, then you have to rely on their system techs and you can't go back later to T-Mobile and gripe to them for the problems you had while roaming using a foreign sim because their billing system WILL have a record of the calls/usage only from their T-Mobile USA sim cards. And of course, you won't get your TMobile voicemail when, for example, you have an Orange France sim in your cell phone.

Now, being a practical sort, why not just get their international permissions added to your account and pay the related roaming charges? I mean, unless you're terribly undisciplined about your airtime usage. I managed a 2 month stay roaming in Ireland, Scotland, the UK and The Netherlands and had a whopping $25.00 in roaming charges. It just takes the guts to tell friends and family to call only when necessary and to use SMS for the rest and mean what you say.