[pct-l] Foreign Hiker - 2 questions and SPOT Connect

[lilacs007 at yahoo.com]

All phones that use a SIM card are gsm and the SIM should work anywhere.

The USA runs on 2 networks- CDMA and GSM. 
CDMA phones do not use SIM cards (generally)

I believe most of the world runs on GSM.

There are some prepaid options in the US, but most run on CDMA. The only major company to eliminate 2 year contracts in the US is tmobile, otherwise I think the other places may have some options for prepaid, but not in general. 
Usually it's smaller company's like Boost Mobile and Cricket etc those are CDMA.

If someone is travelling from Europe a GSM phone should work in the USA.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: Yoshihiro Murakami <completewalker at gmail.com>
Sender: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2013 20:45:44 
To: Eric Martinot<eric at martinot.info>
Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net<pct-l at backcountry.net>
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Foreign Hiker - 2 questions and SPOT Connect

Dear Eric

Briefly speaking,

My AT&T SIM card is not a prepaid type, it is sold by Mobel Co.in Japan.
Therefore, I hold AT&T phone number permanently. Its cost is around 30
dollar in a year.

My phone is  SONY XPERIA tipo dual ( SIM free type ). I use this phone with
a DeLorme in Reach.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OUb-86l_SGk/Uej-lsDC7oI/AAAAAAAAS_M/CiY6UYtbWvk/s1600/P7195776.JPG

It worked fine this summer.

Good night.


2013/9/8 Eric Martinot <eric at martinot.info>

> I live overseas too, and went through this a few years ago.  I ended up
> buying an ATT Go-Phone (pre-paid) smartphone because Verizon didn't seem to
> offer a pre-paid plan for smartphones at the time (may have changed now).
>  After unlocking the Go-Phone smartphone (a major project), I was able use
> it overseas as my primary phone with overseas SIM cards.
>
> I don't know if an ATT Go-Phone (prepaid) SIM card will work in a non-ATT
> phone, someone should verify that before you count on that. (Seems that
> Yoshihiro Murikami's recent PCT-L post implies that that the ATT Go-Phone
> SIM will work in a non-ATT phone.)   If yes, however, ATT won't sell you
> just the SIM card by itself, you have to buy it with a phone.  But you can
> buy a really cheap ATT Go-Phone for $30-40 with a Go-Phone SIM card, and
> then just throw away the phone and use the SIM card.  The biggest problem
> for an overseas hiker is that ATT will only mail the phone/SIM to your
> credit card billing address, so you'd need to have one in the US, I think.
>
> True, ATT service on the trail isn't great.  It was fine in almost all
> trail towns, and at high elevations on the trail with line-of-sight to some
> metro area.  But many times I got a carrier signal of another network, and
> couldn't use it, the phone says "not registered on network" and the
> Go-Phone pre-paid service doesn't allow out-of-network roaming.
>
> I also got a Delorme Inreach to pair (bluetooth) with the ATT Go-Phone
> (Android), and use that for text messages (140-char) when out of range of
> cell service.  Works really well, but its heavy (8 oz.), and requires a
> fairly clear view of the sky, so not in deep valleys, although trees by
> themselves don't seem to bother it.  The Inreach was the first on the
> market to allow two-way communication, so it can receive texts too, but
> SPOT now seems to be providing two-way also?  I'm surprised there hasn't
> been more discussion on PCT-L over the past year about Delorme vs. SPOT, as
> they are now head-to-head competitors it seems, and both useful gear for
> the PCT.
>
>
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-- 
Sincerely
--------------- --------------------------------------
Low Gear (trail name) ---  Low Gear Song was written by Diane with Trail
Hacker and Shroomer  https://sites.google.com/site/completewalker/low-gear

Hiro   ( the short name of Yoshihiro Murakami  村上宣寛 )
facebook  http://www.facebook.com/completewalker
Blogs  http://completewalker.blogspot.jp/
Photo  https://picasaweb.google.com/104620544810418955412/
Backpacking since 1980 in Japan, A foreign member of PCTA;  JMT( 2009,
2010, 2011, 2012), Wind River Range, Glacier NP (2013)

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