Buying a mobile phone in Thailand

[Ninewives]

I went to MBK today and apart from seeing a few very nice ladies the mobile phone range & price looked very good.

If I purchased a mobile would it work in US / UK / Australia? Probably a stupid question - I asked a sales guy and he said no problem (standard reply of course) and I asked another punter standing there (British guy) and he said no.

Help would be appreciated.

Thanks

PS I did try to search the topic

[kahuna]

Yep, they work...They are unbranded, unlocked phones...and should work anywhere in the world...

So long as your home country carrier is GSM and the phone you are buying in LOS is a tri or quad band...it will work just fine...
This is especially important if you're gonna take it to the USA which uses different bands then are used in Europe and Asia...
If in doubt, just pop your sim card in from your home carrier and give it a try before you buy it...

[Road Runner]

Hello Ninewives,

The British guy was largely wrong - but not entirely.

Provided the phone is a multi-band model - and nearly all are - then it will work fine in the UK.

Some basic models are only 1 or 2 band and one of those bands may be a US one - the US uses different frequencies to most other countries. In that case it would be close to useless in the UK.

Best way to check is to Google the phone model and if it says it's a tri-band phone then it will be fine.
Alternatively if it's a two band and sold in the UK it should be OK but check more carefully in that case.

RR.

[rxpharm]

RR is correct, and to add to his post, there are also now Quad band phones, which will work world wide along with the Tri-band phones, as long as they are unlocked.

[Beto]

An unlocked GSM Quad band phone has the following bands:850,900.1800 and 1900 and will work world wide except in the USA if your provider is VERIZON. Verizon has dedicated phones without sim cards I am told.

[dummy_plug]

Most dual band phones will not work on US networks. They use the older frequencies that either were never supported or have been migrated off of. I learned this the hard way two years back when I got a dual mode Sony Ericsson.

[titleist]

All the above posts are correct, the simple way i was told to remember this info (which did come from a telco big wig) dual band for UK,Australia,NZ and most of asia..........tri band for north america and japan.......quad band will work worldwide.

[Ninewives]

Thanks for the advice guys - very much appreciated.

PS Kahuna - based on last night's girl you are on 50% strike rate

[kahuna]

And that percentage is as good as flipping a coin...
So you should only take my advice half the time...
The mystery is, which half...

[sev7en]

(kahuna @ Oct. 19 2008,15:03) And that percentage is as good as flipping a coin...
So you should only take my advice half the time...
The mystery is, which half...

i love your clear-sightness. If we all had the same, life would be so much easier, especially in Los.

[dummy_plug]

Also beware about buying goods in MBK. Some guys swear by them, but they really do seem shady to me. Stickman ran a post, for what its worth, in his column about 2-3 weeks back warning about the same problem. Seems more than a few of his friends have gotten the short end of the stick there.

[BAM]

http://www.worldtimezone.com/gsm.html

[Ninewives]

(kahuna @ Oct. 19 2008,15:03) And that percentage is as good as flipping a coin...
So you should only take my advice half the time...
The mystery is, which half...

On that basis I will have to listen to you more than I do...

[SamplerDoc]

Wonder if my old analog phone will work