Posted by QuickReadAbout.com Staff in Cellular phones and services have numerous incompatibility concerns specially when using it abroad. We need to understand the issues and learn more about it. There are two answers to the cell phone compatibility question.
First, cell phone services use various types of radio frequencies and encoding services thus, if your phone doesn’t receive the frequency and encoding of the local service, it becomes apparently useless.
Second is the commercial problem. Sometimes, your phone will only work on other companies’ services if there is a cross-billing agreement between the two companies. Example of this is roaming. Roaming is very common in the US but it has become more problematic internationally.
Furthermore, when you are in another country, bear in mind that you need to get both a compatible phone and a compatible account. In some countries like Japan renting a cell phone at the airport seems to be the best option since it is practical to determine whether the phone works or not. In the US or overseas, you can either buy or rent a cell phone, but be sure you get one that will be compatible internationally particularly in countries you are planning to visit at, then make sure you have several different ways of getting airtime as well.
Here are some explanations of the issues as well as suggestions on how to get a phone that would work the best way possible.
Frequency and Compatibility Issues
Normally, almost everywhere in the world (except for the US and Canada) uses GSM type digital cell phone service. This service was originally at a frequency of 900 MHz and now it was upgraded to 1800 MHz service. As of November 2004 it was noted that if you have a GSM phone, you can access service in 212 different countries!
Although US and Canada have some GSM service, most cell phone services is of different type (CDMA / TDMA or in Nextel’s case, iDEN) and has different frequency as well.
On the other hand, the GSM service in North America has different frequency bands compared to the rest of the countries. Its frequency is 1900 and 850 MHz instead of 1800 and 900 MHz. Apparently, a 1900MHz phone will not work at 1800 MHz or vice versa.
Multiband Phones
Distinguished cell phone manufacturers like Siemens, Ericsson and Motorola have started making dual and triple band phones to be able to receive 1900MHz or 850MHz frequencies even if you’re in the US or in other international countries.
Okay! So you really want one phone to work everywhere? Well this may not seem to be the perfect solution but it’s probably the best solution that will work locally and internationally. It is strongly recommended that you get a triple band phone that includes both the international frequencies as well as the two US frequencies. Thus, you need a ‘tri-band’ or ‘quad-band’ GSM phone that operates at 900/1800/1900MHz for maximum compatibility.