Cellular Phones in Europe

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INSET PHOTO: When inserted into an unlocked GSM phone, the tiny red SIM card provided me with a local telephone number and prepaid cellular service in France. On a subsequent trip to Italy, I just switched to an Italian SIM card.

Renting vs. buying vs. roaming

Many companies offer rentals of cellular phones in Europe, either for delivery before you leave home or for pickup at an airport abroad. Our car-rental partner, Auto Europe, is one such vendor, and Cellular Abroad makes rentals easy with Fed Ex delivery and a prepaid return shipping label. (You can even rent a satellite phone if you're planning a trip to remote areas or by sea.)

Buying a phone may be more practical than renting, though, if you expect to use the phone in the future--as you might very well do, since GSM phones work in more than 200 countries. (You can use a tri-band phone after your return home if you enroll in a GSM network, or you can buy domestic prepaid, no-contract SIM cards from Cellular Abroad and other vendors in the U.S.)

Roaming is your third option if you're already a GSM phone user in the United States and you have a multi-band "world phone" that works abroad. With this method, you use your phone overseas just as you would at home. Calls may cost several dollars a minute, however, and service isn't always reliable. Sebastian Harrison, the CEO of Cellular Abroad, told me:

"We set up HBO with a bunch of cell phones for a Sex in the City shoot. They said the last time they were in France, not only did they spend tons of money (three months later, they were still getting bills), but the service was terrible. This makes sense because, when you're roaming with a U.S. carrier, a call to a person who's standing next to you has to go back to the U.S. and then back again to Europe through a number of switches that may be busy or down."

Tips:

• According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 78% of internationally bound travelers visit only one country per trip, with another 14% visiting two countries and only 8% visiting three or more. This makes country-specific SIM cards a great value for most travelers, because inbound calls are free. (One Cellular Abroad business customer used to pay $2,200 in roaming charges during an annual trade show in Germany; with his own phone and a German SIM card, he now pays nothing for incoming calls.)

• Although it's possible to pick up rental phones at major European airports, I'd recommend renting or buying a phone for delivery before you leave home. That way, you can get familiar with the phone. Even more important, you'll know your moble-phone number ahead of time, so you'll be able to tell people where to reach you in an emergency.

• Friends at home can save on long-distance charges by reaching you through Skype or another service that allows calling from a computer. They'll pay a small per-minute fee for the local connection to the cellular network at your end, but the cost should be much less than for a conventional international long-distance call.

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