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Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist?
First time accepted submitter Viv Savage (3679171) writes "I live in the U.S. but my daughter will be attending college overseas next year (Scotland specifically). I need to purchase a new phone for her and I'm curious what the Slashdot community would recommend. I understand that a GSM world phone supporting 850/900/1800/1900 MHz frequencies would give her the best voice support. There doesn't appear to be a solution for getting high-speed data (i.e., 4G) here and abroad with one phone. Have any worldly Slashdotters figured this out?"
Doesn't the Nexus 4 qualify for this?
It's not only kilts and haggis up there.
They have cell phone shops too. She should buy herself a cell phone in Scotland.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
What do you need 4G for, anyway? H+ Is pretty fast, and the university will have wifi everywhere I should think. A Galaxy S2 will be perfectly adequate.
Get free bitcoins: http://freebitco.in
http://www.htc.com/us/smartpho... Nuff said.
When ordering form other countries, it change to those ones: Network: 2G/3G/4G LTE, GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8, LTE: Bands: 1/3/5/7/8/20, Source: https://productforums.google.c...
Yes, most new smartphones have this capability. Take the iPhone 5S for example. (https://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/)
These are the supported LTE bands:
1 (2100 MHz), 2 (1900 MHz), 3 (1800 MHz), 4 (AWS), 5 (850 MHz), 8 (900 MHz),13 (700c MHz), 17 (700b MHz), 19 (800 MHz), 20 (800 DD),25 (1900 MHz)
700/AWS are the main 4G bands in the American ITU region
800/1800MHz are the main deployed bands in Europe/African ITU region
1800/2100MHz are the main deployed bands in the Asian/Pacific ITU region (note that APT 700MHz is different to the USA's mongrel of a 700MHz band)
Other bands (e.g. 900MHz) are only used very rarely (in this case one operator in Sweden and one in Czech Republic) but also are supported.
Your daughter's main problem will be:
a) whether her UK network has deployed 4G where she is (though in the middle of Edinburgh or Glasgow she should be fine). You will find that due to better 3G networks, Europe is lagging behind the US in 4G coverage.
b) the lack of 4G international roaming (not many operators let you roam onto 4G networks)
c) the cost of 4G international roaming (if allowed) would be prohibitive
Hi,
I've been looking for myself, and one that stood out was the Xperia Z1 compact from sony. My primary issue was the battery endurance, but it seems to be able to get all the frequencies required by 4G.. http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_x...
If she is spending most of term time in Scotland, why not ask her to get a phone in the UK? It's a lot cheaper - most of the time top end phones are free on a 24-month contract. Assuming that she is going to Uni and not college - her course would be at least 3 years anyway. Unless, of course, it's just an exchange program.
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also if the service provider (i.e. tmobile) provides calls and texts over wifi. then you shouldnt have any problems with the types of bands th device supports.
The latest iPad Air made some news in the tech circles when it came out for it's 4G capabilities. It was the first time Apple was able to use 100% identical hardware for AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. In fact, baring some stupidity in provisioning departments, it's possible to buy one, get SIM's from the other three, and have a 4-provider iPad in the US.
The specs:
UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900 MHz)
LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26)
Based on my reading at the time, due to the power and antenna requirements there were no phones that had the same laundry list of 4G bands. Of course that was ~1 year ago now, and time moves pretty fast in the mobile world. The reason I post this though is the iPad Air makes a killer 4G hotspot, 24 hours of battery life with the screen off. Maybe a 3G world phone and an iPad Air for high speed data are a viable solution? The iPad also is sold unlocked from Apple, no extra charge. Phones will likely have carrier locking issues.
not 100% sure but if you buy it full price it will come with the SIM card unlocked and supports the most worldwide LTE frequencies.
my wife has this device and she loves it. does deserve a look at IMO.
800 / 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1800 / 1900 / 2100 / 2600 I verified that the international version says "4g" on the Tmobile network in the US. http://www.amazon.com/Sony-C68...
None of the US variants of the 5S supports UK 4G.
https://www.apple.com/iphone/L...
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
TFS still needs to know what device to get, not just that it be unlocked.
Yes it sucks to lug two devices around. Alternatively, use a cheap 4G phone as the 4G hotspot.
Alas, electronics have not yet advanced to the point where it is reasonable to have one phone with support for all combinations of bands and technologies.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
for cheapness or both voice and data go for www.threee.co.uk
not only does it have all you can eat voice, but all you can eat data too and you can tether(4gb total tethering) and all phone data unlimited or filtered. mind you a little user agent spoofing bypasses the cap..lol
This is perfect for skype/oovoo scenarios where 4g would help.
Your daughter would be best going to either Glasgow,Aberdeen,Edinburgh or Dundee universities as those will have the best coverage being the biggest places.. St Andrews may have the name but it's not exactly a thriving metropolis.. so i would recommewnd any GSM phone of yer choise with a 3 SIM in it, that way only battery life can interrupt your connectivity and thus contact via voice/video etc.
DISCLOSURE - I AM a customer of three and have been for years.I don't work for them though.... they are much better than they used to be and unlimited 4g at no extra cost isn't a toughie to ask someone, it's a good deal.. in fact at the moment you can still get "The One Plan" month to month contract SIM card with 2000 minutes, unlimited data and 5000 texts for a mere 23 GBP..
They are all images, so you will have to type the links.
http://i.imgur.com/pxx6QB3.jpg
Get an unlocked phone with a removable SIM card (which excludes anything Verizon sells)
Stop repeating lies. Every modern Verizon phone sold in the last 3 years has a removable SIM card. The last 5 Verizon phones I've owned (iPhone 5S, LG G2, HTC Rezound, RAZR HD, Galaxy S3) were sold SIM unlocked with GSM/HSPA world capabilities. Most even work on AT&T/T-Mobile here in the USA as well. Just because Verizon *used* to sell crippled CDMA-only hardware doesn't mean that's been the case in recent history. The Verizon devices are actually the best ones to get nowadays, as they are the only carrier selling factory unlocked phones and are compatible with Verizon AND every other GSM provider in the world.
Make sure you check your decision with your daughter before you buy it. Many people are very picky about what device they want to use. You would probably choose something she does not want to use. Maybe you should just ask your daughter to select a phone and just help here with figuring out if it will work in Scotland.
I've seen 3G phones run at 8 megabits and in Europe, just because they call it 4G doesn't mean there's high bandwidth on the pipe feeding the tower itself. So just get a 3G phone.
You understand wrong. A few carriers petitioned the ITU to allow them to market their advanced HSPA+ networks as "4G". This was because they had no LTE network and Verizon was rolling one out. All of the carriers that were marketing HSPA+ as 4G now run LTE networks, however.
This seems like the sort of problem solved by a Google Search.
http://www.myworldphone.com/un...
O2 and Vodaphone appear to use LTE band 20 (SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...) AT&T and Canadian carriers generally seem to use bands 4 and 17 (same source).
The iPhone 5s does all of those and more. Model A1533 (GSM)*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 20, 25)
(Source: https://www.apple.com/iphone-5... )
I may be missing something but just buying an unlocked iPhone 5S from apple seems to give you all the LTE, HSPA, etc networks you could use in the UK and USA/Canada.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
I could be wrong, but isn't the Nexus 5 both 4G and LTE?
The wiki page for it claims:
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Model LG-D820 (North America)
CDMA band class: 0/1/10
WCDMA bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19
LTE bands: 1/2/4/5/17/19/25/26/41
Model LG-D821 (Rest of World)
WCDMA bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8
LTE bands: 1/3/5/7/8/20
So it looks like the LG-D821 would be her best option. She might not have LTE in North America but will still have GSM. I not an expert on this subject so definitely do some more research. Good luck!
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
If it is over wifi, you can use Voip providers. I use http://www.poivy.com/en/index.... and can call free for 90 days and then 2 cents per minute. SMS is also pretty cheap. On http://www.backsla.sh/betamax you will see a lot other providers. Be aware that the price of 0 often means for a limited time when you did a top-up of e.g. 10 EUR.
When I have network, I just use that to call/SMS with http://www.poivy.com/mobile_vo...
When I don't have network and I want tro call abroad, I just dial into a local number and I call for a local call+2 cents from Belgium to e.g. Spain. US would be 1.5 cents per minute.
I have an unlocked android phone (acer) with a pre-paid card. I have no idea if (and how) my network provider would block Network access to certain sites. I am sure that would be illegal in Europe. (IF you take this as legal advice, you are a dunce.)
So that could reduce your phone and SMS costs. Especially if you want to call a lot from Europe to the US and from the US to Europe.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Anecdotal evidence. Take it for what it's worth:
When I was in rural Ethiopia a few years ago with about 20 other Americans, everyone was passing around the 3 phones that actually worked. They were all iPhones and all AT&T. My Verizon phone worked great as an MP3 player but that's about it. My wifes sprint phone would crash constantly and couldn't even be used for that (it was a dumbphone) I was told that the only international carrier that would work there was AT&T.
I HATE Apple with a passion, though I did use that phone because I wanted to call home a few times... and more importantly, one of the people in our group was a Microsoft salesman that had his, then, prototype windows phone. Every time I was talking on the phone while standing in the middle of creation, I'd look over at him, smile, and sometimes wink. It was great. It was well worth the Apple taint for that alone.
But, I wouldn't put up with Apple just for international calling. You can pick up a cheap dumb phone in just about any country for $20. In ethiopia they were under $10 and sold, along with phone cards, a small wooden booths next to random meat on a stick. I'd just have her do that (but stay away from the meat.) That way, if the phone doesn't work somewhere she can just dump it in a trash bin and get a new one rather than be out $600 on a smart phone. Or get her a smart phone for home AND a dumb phone with international voice only.
I have a Verizon Galaxy S3. I removed the Verizon sim and put in the 3 (UK) sim card, works perfectly fine, gets good speeds on H+. No 4G, though.
How many engineers do you need to chose a smart-phone for your teens ?
I've got a Verizon Galaxy S4, I can verify it works at least in the UK and Spain.
Are you taking class with her since you're asking for her? Then I'd recommend you buy yourself a phone for the US and she buys herself a phone for the UK. Since you seem to care a lot for each other you can - when needed - swap phones as necessary. Man, if she's your daughter and she goes overseas let her take care for herself. If this post is not totally embarrassing for her I tell you it is.
A "4th generation" (4G) network is a 4th generation network. Some nobodies making a list of minimum specs for one can safely be ignored because they don't matter. 4G LTE is really a 5th generation network. It should be 5G.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
>A search of 4G phones will be sufficient; plus it will work in Scotland and the USA. If you are going to buy a 4G phone in the UK, you might as well have it unlocked here, before taking it back to the USA, if it is still illegal to have phones unlocked in the USA!
It was never illegal to have phones unlocked in the USA.
However in the UK, you can waltz into any skeevey looking phone store and they'll unlock it for a small fee while you go and get lunch.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Yes, the phone I used was from AT&T and popping a local SIM card (in The Philippines as it happens) did work for me.
Maybe I misinterpreted this response but... I took my Galaxy S4 (Verizon) to Spain and Portugal last year and just popped out the SIM card and popped in the Orange (Spain) / Vodafone? (Portugal) SIM cards. Mostly used it for maps/GPS. Awesome. Maybe this is key: The phone is running Cyanogenmod.
I recently traveled to France, England, and Ireland. I have a Sprint HTC One which Sprint unlocked for me in order to use a foreign SIM card while on my trip.
You will not need 4G, so do not concern yourself with that. I quickly discovered that their 3G speeds throughout the region easily and quite regularly surpassed 4G speeds I have measured here in the US on several providers.
My memory may be off on this a bit but I could swear, while running a speed test, that I was pulling down 20Mb/sec. I've yet to get that result on Sprint's 4G network. I recognize that Sprint is not the standard by which all others should be compared, but still... I was impressed and surprised.
My US purchased iPhone 5s, model A1533 (GSM/AT&T) works perfectly fine in the UK. The only LTE/4G band this model does not support, and is used in the UK, is 7 -- this band is only used by EE and who also broadcast on band 3.
I use my phone on the EE network and have received high-speed 4G service in Edinburgh, Dundee, and (south of the border) London.
In St Andrews, where I study, I receive only 3G service (at best). Sitting in the library I have a full 5 "dots" of service, and the 3G marker, but am getting just 30 KB/s. Generally this doesn't matter as we have almost blanket WiFi coverage across the town, however when indoors on the outskirts of town EEs signal can be patchy (even for voice).
Previously I used O2 (also with this phone, switching to lower the monthly cost). Generally, the internet speed was similar (better in some areas, worse in others) but the indoor signal was better. High-speed cellular infrastructure is patchy in Scotland outside of more major towns and cities, and in St Andrews at least I believe O2 offers the best service.
Hope this helps.
Not only does the iPhone have the frequency bands the asker wants, but it is one of the easiest phones to purchase completely unlocked and off-contract in the USA (so long as you purchase direct from Apple). Most other contract-free phones here are still sold locked to the carrier, and generally require several months of paid service before the carrier will provide an unlock code.
Other less expensive options for a world phone would be Google's Nexus 5 or Motorola's Moto G (if you don't absolutely need LTE).
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Quick answers to your questions and points of consideration:
1.) Apple iPhones meet your criteria.
2.) Scotland has shit for phone infrastructure compared to the US; she'll get 3G except for downtown Edinburgh and Downtown Glasgow--at which point she'll get 4G if she's on a 4G plan.
3.) Phone plans are cheaper here, and you get a variety: Vodephone has the best coverage, 3 has the best coverage considering price point. I would suspect you may not care about the latter though. Americans who send their kids to Scotland are often 'not poor'. Hope they enjoy their time at St Andrews.
Even if your phone supports 4G, most Telcos do not allow roaming phones to use it because it is not covered by their roaming agreements.
If you take a US Verizon LTE phone into Canada, you will not get 4G even though the networks are identical. The inverse is also true for Bell or Telus phones in the USA.
One exception is Rogers in Canada and AT&T in the USA who have an LTE roaming agreement.
I suspect that it depends on where you go. My family is from Orkney and I find it pretty well covered when I'm back.
As far as London and Edinburgh seem to feel, we are somewhere around the North pole and have a population of about 25. If its up here, it may be even better covered down south where (self) important people live...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I mean some may talk funny, but since when does that count as a "foreign language"?
Don't go blaming us Brits for treating American as a foreign language. I was in a Chicago book store several years ago and was amused to see that they had the Oxford English Dictionary on the shelves of the foreign language section.
This article doesn't mention specific bands, but it says "Vertu reckons it'll work on most 4G bands around the world." http://www.cnet.com/news/rich-...
Affordable 3G (big enough data a package, or flat fee) is probably way more useful.
4G just mean that you can in theory use one GB in 1-2 minutes.
Another thing you might want consider is that you probably don't want to be reach able transparently, personal experience show that getting voice calls during the night (locally) just to say Hi is not only expensive but also gets boring really quick.
Regarding 4G coverage, as others have mentioned, Edinburgh and Glasgow are well served for 4G and will certainly be fine around the campus areas.
Other uni towns:
I'd recommend EE for best coverage over here, I'm on Vodaphone and get great 4G in Edinburgh but fuck-all (some local patter for you there) in Dundee, Stirling, and St Andrews.
Hope that's some use, best of luck to your daughter at uni - I'm sure she'll love it.
Get an unlocked phone with a removable SIM card (which excludes anything Verizon sells).
I just pop the SIM out of my Verizon phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 2) and pop in my foreign SIM (China, Hong Kong) and it works great. No need to call Verizon to unlock anything - it just works.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Right before LTE started rolling out, and before Nokia was forced to adopt chipsets approved for Windows Phone rather than using their own, the high-end Nokia devices developed had pentaband 3G and quadband 2G, which covered nearly everything (sure, some rural places in very few countries were CDMA, but this was already rare). It seemed then like other manufacturers might catch up. Unfortunately, with LTE we've re-fragmented, and manufacturers have used it as an excuse to go back to selling different models for different markets/carriers.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
I am heading to Scotland tomorrow Germany next week and then back to the states. I will be bringing my unlocked Moto X. I'm assuming EE works there (it says it does).
She should get herself a Three UK SIM on contract or pay-as-you-go (with all-you-can-eat data) and when she visits back to the USA she can put the SIM in a US-compatible phone, call her friends in the UK and be billed as if she were in the UK.
Technical point: LTE isn't 4G.
So I guess people who misread "4G LTE" as "4G Lite" must be right, no?
I believe Scottish degrees are 4 years (or 5 for an integrated masters).
My 3G phone in most European cities can get at least 1-2Mbps. At that speed I would manage to finish off my - ample for my usage - 1GB montly data plan in 1-2 hours. Why would I want anything faster? Would I be streaming HD video or download torrents? I have cheap DSL for that.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
There's no 4G outside Edinburgh & Glasgow at the moment I believe, but there is good 3G covering pretty much all the Universities and their surroundings and good wifi in the university buildings. If she's coming to St Andrews (statistically likely) there is definitely no 4G.
First, someone mentioned their Verizon phone wouldn't work in Africa: this is no surprise, as Verizon uses CDMA, which is found only in islands outside of N. America. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Second, here is Wikipedia's list of bands since no one bothered to include it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
and an alternative source: http://niviuk.free.fr/lte_band...
Now, for a list of phones, a quick search found this article: http://www.extremetech.com/ele...
This phone doesn't support 600-700 MHz LTE, but I don't think that's being deployed much yet in Europe, anyway (though it's coming). And, of course, the mention of the latest Apples.
Personally, I think it's a miracle that EE's are able to squeeze in as many bands as they have (650-928 MHz and 1710-2600 MHz with a gap or two PLUS 2450 MHz WiFi and Bluetooth) and still have usable sensitivity and selectivity. This is more than just SDR at work.
IIRC, the Nexus 4 only has the hardware for one of the LTE bands (Band 4), by sheer coincidence due to the part used for the air interface. Google said they disabled LTE support on the device as a cost saving measure, but possibly also under LG pressure to differentiate the Nexus from their top-end phones. Most LTE phones support at least 5 or 6 of the bands to ensure that they are compatible with most providers in that region.
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Oh sure, AC. We believe you.
The last two iPhones I bought over four years or so have worked fine in Canada and England (my current iPhone is from Verizon).
It's so typical of a liberal to have knowledge thats as outdated as it is plain incorrect - did MSNBC tell you recently you couldn't use a Verizon iPhone in Canda? Or perhaps it was an article on Huffington Post.
Come on, you know you read them. We all do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The iPhone because Apple has enough clout to force all carriers to sell the same model phone. (Only the CDMA model is different.) Consequently, that model works around the world. With most other phones, the carriers have the upper hand and get the manufacturer to make a version customized to their frequencies.
The Nexus 5 because Google did the same thing. There are two versions - a North American version which supports CDMA and LTE bands commonly used in the U.S., and a world version which doesn't support CDMA but adds LTE bands more common throughout the world.
Those are the two I know of for sure. There may be some others too. e.g. The newer Samsung models support both GSM and CDMA for voice, but only a limited number of LTE bands. Find the GSM and LTE frequencies used by your U.S. carrier and in the UK/Scotland, then browse the gsmarena website to find phones which work in both.
Yes, the problem with Verizon nowadays is the other way round -- it's impossilble to get a non-Verizon phone to work on the Verizon network, because of their proprietary CDMA, and their non-contract phones are generally way overpriced. Which was quite a headache for us when my wife dropped her new HTC One in the sink last year...
Hopefully this should become less of a problem once they start their VoLTE rollout.
Dont bother with 4G, and you'll find plenty of multiband phones.
First off, consider buying a burner phone and sell it afterwards. Put a local SIM card in the device, so it can call local numbers cheaper. Lots of advantages here.
Second, if you do insist on one phone to rull them all, please do forget about 4G. Even with 4G coverage you wont exceed 3G speeds without looking for a very specific (unrealistic) scenario. Unless she wants to broadcast live video from her phone in HD, ofcourse.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
1. Buy a 'sim free' phone in UK on arrival. Different bankwidths and safety regulations as she must use a "CE" marked phone within the EU.
2. At beginning certainly use a pay-as -you-go-phone. She cam swop to her USA SIM when she goes back to USA.
3. Coverage: Very necessary to know actual telcom providers ( both real and 'virtual' who piggy back on an other telecos line) relative to the area she will be in, Albeit most telecos claim 90+% coverage, they do this by piggy backing (roaming charges) on other networks and operation is very limited in mountainous regions.
Example: Within my areas near Manchester in England and in Galoway in southern Scotland, signal strengths vary widely. ( 300yards = 80% loss of signal on two telecos but not on third) In cities mostly OK, but in rural and some islands areas you have problems.
Regards Eion MacDonald
You can get phones that cover all the bands used for HSPA+ worldwide. That's not quite 4G, despite the marketing of AT&T and T-Mobile, but it's still plenty fast: theoretical download speeds of 42Mbps and real world speeds reaching 10Mbps. Phones that offer that include the Nexus line, the Sony Xperia phones, the iPhone 4 and 5 families, and many others.
What you can't get are phones that cover all the bands used for LTE worldwide. Phones that offer worldwide HSPA+ and some LTE typically come in two versions: one for North America (with some, but not complete, coverage of bands used elsewhere) and one for the rest of the world (with limited coverage of the US LTE bands). One big sticking point is one of the LTE bands used by Verizon; since pretty much nobody else in the entire world uses it (Verizon bought the rights to it for the entire US, there are not yet any deployments on those frequencies elsewhere in the Americas, and it's not available for cell phone use in the rest of the world), nothing but a Verizon-specific phone will do.
If you have an unlocked phone with worldwide HSPA+, take it with you on your travels. Most likely the data speeds will be good enough. If they're not you'll have to think about getting a local phone, or perhaps consider getting a local phone-WiFi gateway instead.
Go for Google Nexus 5 it is the best one if you have low budget and its camera processor and software is really awesome.