Can a GMS phone be used in the United States with a sim card, without paying for a service?

I need a triband phone, I live in the States, but travel. Ideally, I would like to call the UK from here, call here from the UK and call my sister twenty miles away. I want to use a prepaid phone card. Do I need to pay for service, such as Cingular, or may I use a Sim card? Use one sim for the States and another for the UK?

Can a GMS phone be used in the United States with a sim card, without paying for a service?
Yes! What you need is prepaid service. This will allow you to use one SIM in the US without having to sign a contract or anything, and a local card when in the UK. You could use service in the US for both, but it will cost you ALOT. A SIM card is basically your activated service and phone #. So, what you need to do is go to a Cingular store and activate prepaid service and you will get a SIM card for free. You will have to pay for the airtime and an extra fee for international long distance calling (it's $1.49/min to landline or $1.68/min to a mobile for the UK). Or, you can just purchase a 3rd party prepaid phone card and use their cheaper long distance rates and just pay for the airtime. You can check out the Cingular plans here (I would reccomend GoPhone pay as you go for you):


http://onlinestorez.cingular.com/cell-ph...





Hope that helps! :) Let me know if you need any further assistance. Don't forget to choose me for best answer!!!





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Hi Rebecca! I tried to e-mail you but it was not yet confirmed, so it did'nt go through. In response to your question:





Basically, the SIM card you have to get @ the Cingular or other service provider's store. That's really the only place you can get a SIM card in the US. Once you've got your SIM activated, you can go ahead and start calling anywhere you want, to the UK or where ever... but, the long distance rates on prepaid that they will hit you with can be ALOT! So I was just suggesting that you could also get a prepaid long distance rate card. Not a SIM card, just a 3rd party calling card just like you would use to call the UK from a landline. Like the one's sold here:





http://www.callingcards.com/shopping/rat...





They usually have better rates, so you could use that to make it a little bit cheaper! Hope that helps, good luck :)





Cheers!


Ashelena