Uzbek/Russian phone with U.S. SIM card?

[turveydrop 4]

Will a prepaid SIM card in the U.S. work in these foreign phones? If not, does anyone know of a solution that doesn't involve paying hundreds of dollars for a new phone to use for a two-month visit? Thanks.

[slim 1,525]

Why not just pick up a cheap phone there?

[cdneh 3,112]

It didn't work in mine.

[sea-monkey 13]

Are you talking about a visitor coming to America with their Russian phone?

Just buy a cheap $10 prepaid phone from Walmart. It will work with any ATT sim, prepaid or post paid.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/AT-T-GoPhone-Prepaid-Samsung-A107-Cell-Phone-Silver/15421486

If you are talking about going to Uzbek, buy an unlocked phone on Amazon for around $50 or less. Actually, you can buy an unlocked phone instead of that Walmart one.

Just search for 'unlocked phone'.

[turveydrop 4]

I stopped by AT&T, and they have some very cheap "go phones" starting at $20, but even if hers doesn't work, a friend has a couple of Blackberries he and his girlfriend recently replaced. The prepaid SIM cards are only $60 for voice, text, email, and international. Not bad. Thanks for the replies.

[Sveta & Ron 23]

last year during my first visit to ukraine I bought a cheap cell phone for like 10.00 usd then got my t-mobile phone unlocked and i carry my ukraine sim card in my wallet for my next visit and my iphone works great there

[eekee 182]

It will work as long as it is tri/quad band. Also it won't work with Sprint or Verizon. AT&T and T-Mobile are fine. It's just the very cheap phones that don't work outside of Europe.

Edited March 10, 2012 by eekee

[Darnell 8,478]

Will a prepaid SIM card in the U.S. work in these foreign phones? If not, does anyone know of a solution that doesn't involve paying hundreds of dollars for a new phone to use for a two-month visit? Thanks.

1. quadband gsm

2. unlocked

meet the 2 conditions above? absolutely !!

[Neonred 3,562]

I stopped by AT&T, and they have some very cheap "go phones" starting at $20, but even if hers doesn't work, a friend has a couple of Blackberries he and his girlfriend recently replaced. The prepaid SIM cards are only $60 for voice, text, email, and international. Not bad. Thanks for the replies.

You can pick up T-mobile prepaid SIM cards for about $6

http://www.amazon.com/T-Mobile-Sim-Card-Prepaid-Kit/dp/B004UI4WFM/ref=pd_cp_cps_0

and then put as much time on it as needed. I'm sure the phone is unlocked, so as long as it is a quad band phone it should work.

If it is a very cheap phone then it may only have the two bands used over there, same as the cheap phones here that only use the two bands common to the US GSM market.

[Tanya and Barry 59]

I'm pretty sure he is talking about using her phone here in the States. We use unlocked phones with Straight Talk BYO SIMS. Works fine. Better than paying grunches to AT&T (which I did for years).

[Neonred 3,562]

I'm pretty sure he is talking about using her phone here in the States. We use unlocked phones with Straight Talk BYO SIMS. Works fine. Better than paying grunches to AT&T (which I did for years).

Cheaper phones for use in Europe or middle Asia, just like cheaper phones used in the US, often only have the bands (frequencies) used in that region. Thus a dual band phone from Europe or middle Asia will not work in the US. Most better phones are quad band phones and will work world wide. I do think more phones than not are now quad band. Many years ago I took my old tri band Nokia phone to Russia and used a prepaid Beeline SIM and that worked fine.

My wife had a decent Nokia quad band phone she bought in Russia and we just bought a $4 prepaid T-Mobile SIM and put some time on it. Worked great.