[Idyllchat] More - International Cellular Telephone Usage - Europe and Cruise Ships

[Russell Crum]

The January 2008 issue of International Travel News had an item in  
the Travelers' Intercom department concerning the use of cell phones  
on board cruise ships. Someone was appalled when they were billed  
$4.99/minute roaming charge for a cell phone call they made on a  
Royal Caribbean ship. The bottom line was that the ship disclaimed  
any responsibility because these are charges imposed by the cell  
phone carriers for international roaming charges. According to the  
article, the warning is contained on Royal Caribbean's web site,  
although the ITN staff said it is not easy to find.  For anyone who  
gets ITN (which I highly recommend), it is on page 34 of the January  
issue.


Russ Crum


On Jan 12, 2008, at 10:41 , Ed Comer wrote:

> Re: alan rudolph  - "...Holland America now has the capacity to let  
> you use your own cell phones...". I am going on a Swiss UnTour this  
> fall and most of my interest in International Cellular Telephone  
> Usage relates to that trip. However, I am also taking a  
> transatlantic cruise in two weeks and will end the trip with some  
> time in Spain, so I'll take my cellular telephone along just to  
> test out my various options that I'll use in the fall in  
> Switzerland. The reason that I mentioned the cruise is because I am  
> in dialogue at the CruiseCritic site with fellow passengers of my  
> cruise and they have also discussed using cell phones on the ship.  
> It seems that most cruise lines now offer this service. Basically,  
> the cruise line installs a mini-cell site on the ship that does NOT  
> connect to any cellular company's service. Rather it connects to  
> the ship's own ship-to-shore radiotelephone service. Essentially,  
> you are just using your cellular telephone as a cordless phone for  
> the ship-to-shore radiotelephone service. I have read that the  
> rates are in the neighborhood of $2.50 per minute. It seems that  
> the ships install mini-cells that will support both of the US  
> technologies, CDMA (Verizon & Sprint)and GSM (T-Mobile & AT&T), and  
> support the USA frequencies of GSM. Remember that ONLY the USA uses  
> 850 MGz and 1,900 MHz frequencies for cellular telephony. The rest  
> of the world uses 900 MHz and 1,800 MHz, which is why most USA  
> based cellular telephones won't work in Europe. Of course IS95A  
> standard CDMA (Verizon & Sprint) phones won't work anywhere but the  
> USA and a few places in the Caribbean.
>
> Re: dtrees - "I have used my regular ol' Cingular (AT&T now) phone  
> in Ireland and Germany " - You obviously have a quad-mode or tri- 
> mode GSM phone, meaning that it includes the European frequencies  
> in addition to the USA frequencies. Unfortunately, my personal  
> cellular telephone service is with Verizon, because it has the best  
> coverage in the North Carolina mountains, where I live. Since  
> Verizon's CDMA service will not function in Europe, I cannot use my  
> existing personal cellular telephone there.  As a result, I  
> purchased from eBay an UNLOCKED, Motorola V551, Quad-Mode GSM  
> cellular telephone on eBay for $46. I then ordered a pseudo-free  
> SIM card from MOBAL for a $10 shipping & Handling charge. Given  
> that MOBAL's calls are $1.99 per minute whether to the USA or  
> local, I won't use it much. Hince, my curiosity about other options  
> in this discussion group. At this point, I think that I'll take the  
> Mobal SIM as a backup and try to purchase a Sunrise SIM to use in  
> my cellular telephone at the Zurich airport, as mentioned by Jay  
> Cloidt, for most calls.
>
> Now for those that, after reading my posts, may think that I'm  
> going to be obsessed with calling back to the USA - not true. My  
> UnTour is for total relaxation. I simply want to have a working  
> phone for emergency use, which hopefully won't be needed. It is  
> likely to see very little use.
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