How do I call home from here?

[mustfocus]

Verizon is a CDMA carrier so you can take your phone there, however, you will not be able to insert a sim card into your phone (sim card technology is GSM based or 3.5G based).  Best bet if you want a local phone is to do as I suggested with a quad-band GSM phone and get a sim card from there.  Your lady can help you with that part.

[shaun]

Verizon does have phones with removable sim cards but I think it might be best as Willy said and use yahoo messenger for pre-determined times.  If there is an emergency then I will have the texting ready to go.

[mustfocus]

That's true.  It's also usually used if you have lots of friends or relatives in that area you'll be in.  Case in point, when I visit Singapore or Hong Kong, I would need one.  But that's not necessarily a good thing either...sometimes you don't want to be found. :icon_biggrin:

[Willy The Londoner]

Verizon does have phones with removable sim cards but I think it might be best as Willy said and use yahoo messenger for pre-determined times.  If there is an emergency then I will have the texting ready to go.

But then if it is real emergency then would cost matter?  Just get on the phone.  

Willy

[odysseus007]

Thanks Dave. :icon_biggrin:

Shuan, sim cards are locked to the phone company that issues them because that's how the phone number is entered into the system.  As Dave said, you want an unlocked GSM phone if you want to take it to China.  I'm sure you could pick one up in your local TigerDirect or Overstock or Newegg...  But make sure it's a quad-band phone (it will operate on 4 frequencies) as China may use different frequencies than they use in the US.  The phones need to be unlocked because many of the phone companies like AT&T or Verison lock the phone down with software so they can't accept a sim card from their competitors (otherwise they wouldn't subsidize the phone on a contract)

What a lot of people do is if they're staying in a region for any extended period of time, they'll just pick up a sim card from the local phone company.  I suggested to Dave he do that in Singapore as it'll be cheaper than using his phone there (assuming he's got a Rogers/Fido phone).

I know many of the ladies I have talked to in China switch sim cards/phone numbers on a regular basis depending on where they will be staying as the benefits change.

I always do that. You can even get a DOUBLE-SIM card phone in China, which I think is pretty hard to find in US or Canada. But beware - I used to have SIM cards for Shanghai, Kunming & Tianjin. After some time they took away my number AND unused stored value/airtime for the first 2 SIM cards, so now I only still keep my Tianjin SIM card.