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Help Travelling to Thailand...just pop in one of their sims???

M

mcoomer

Member
Heading out to Thailand in a few hours and just got off the phone with Verizon to get my phone unlocked. No dice. Even though I'm heading into Laos and their map shows no service options they won't unlock my phone. Will my phone work if I drop a Thai sim in it?

Mike
 
It should. Supposedly, 4g phones are already unlocked, so you should be able to pop in a sim from over there, change network settings to gsm and be good to go. Also, don't forget to disable your data (Verizon) in settings prior to getting there... Overseas data rates are nuts!
 
If you take out the SIM card aren't you disabling anyconnection, data included, with Verizon?
 
Disabled data and enabled wifi. I've got email and data over that and a prepaid sim set me back 150THB (about $5). Just called the US to let everyone know we arrived safely. Awesomeness happens from time to time.

Mike
 
Just got back from Thailand and wanted to update this.

I ended up spending about 700THB while I was over there for phone service (less than $24). I was able to make calls in country and to the US and when I left still had about 150THB on the sim so my usage was more like $18 for the month. Sims are prepaid and when it's empty simply walk into a 7-Eleven and reload it. You get a receipt with a code that you enter and once done you get a text with your current balance. *121# will get your balance any time you wish to check.

Anyway, it was awesome to have my phone with me and simple to do. Happy New Year all.

Mike
 
Good info! Thanks for the update, I'm sure this will come in handy for many of our friends that travel. Oh, and Welcome back!!!!
 
What about data? Did the sim cover in country data, or did you just use wifi connections the whole time?
 
When I came back from the UK I was going to post about that.

We used a pre-paid 4g card in the UK. Something like 5 british pounds got us 4G service and free wifi hotspots around the UK for something like a 1 gb limit.

we didn't even use it all but damn did it work great.
 
My sim didn't cover data. I saw some advertisements for sims that would have covered it but I simply used prepaid wifi for data while I was there. Hotels generally had free wifi while I was in the room.

Mike
 
mcoomer said:
Heading out to Thailand in a few hours and just got off the phone with Verizon to get my phone unlocked. No dice. Even though I'm heading into Laos and their map shows no service options they won't unlock my phone. Will my phone work if I drop a Thai sim in it?

Mike
Click to expand...

Razr is already unlocked after ICS update. You can remove the Verizon -micro-SIM and insert any local GSM micro-SIM and use its prepaid plan. In China you can buy prepaid micro-SIM that covers 50 mins, 300MB data, and 240 TXT for about $10 (USD). Overage is about 3 cents (USD) per min and 5 cents per MB. I haven't used one in Thailand but I assume there should be similarly priced options.

One thing to keep in mind is that in order to make data work, you will need to update the APN setting according to your local carrier. Usually it's available from your carrier, otherwise Google is your friend.
 
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