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11:28 am
Hi, I have a nokia E90 Communicator, that I bought in South Africa. I am planning to visit Toronto in about 2 months. Will i be able to use the phone? What local package is best for me?
12:37 pm
October 21, 2008
Offline
Just make sure that your Nokia can use the GSM 850 and 1900 MHz bands. And make sure it's unlocked so you can use any SIM in it.
In Canada, only half of the cellphone companies use GSM. Rogers, Fido, Speakout, PetroCanada, and a couple of others use GSM. Bell, Telus, President's Choice, Virgin, Koodo, Solo use CDMA technology, so avoid them.
(Well, you can use any company's plans, you'll just have to get one of their phones instead of using your E90)
Without knowing anything about your planned use, I can only guess that going to a prepaid plan like Speakout might be a good choice. Speakout has decent prepaid rates. NOt sure if you can call South Africa directly with Speakout, but you would want to use a seperate long distance card anyways.
1:05 pm
April 14, 2009
Offline
Almost all phones are manufactured specific to each country's network. Some phones have SIM cards and some exact same models don't have SIM cards depending on which network or country it is manufactured for.
Almost all countries in Africa/South Africa uses 2 GSM bands different from the 2 bands we use in Canada.
BUT if your E90 uses SIM cards, then it is very likely that it has 4 bands because Nokia E90 is a 4-band phone UNLESS it had been altered by the manufacturer to meet the needs of the cellular provider.
Next thing, your phone must be UNLOCKED or it will not work in any other country.. will not work even in your own country with other cellular provider... if your E90 is LOCKED, it will be tied to only the service provider you signed up for... no other company!
In short, for your e90 to work here,
1) it must be 4-band (for the 2 bands 1900 and 850 used here and the 2 other bands used in most of Africa (1800 and 900).
2) It must use a SIM card.
3) Your phone must be UNLOCKED... even if UNLOCKED, no guarantee it'll work with any other service privider... depending on if the provider wants to accept phone serial numbers not in their database.
If your phone meets the 3 conditions above, then it's very likely your phone can work with a 7-Eleven SpeakOut Cellular SIM card BUT no guarantees... you need to borrow a SIM card and see if it works.. any 7_Eleven store person might be able to help you out by inserting their personal SIM card, if they have one, into your phone to check it out.
You certainly won't be able to use your phone with a few phone companies here in Canada and the US because they do not use SIM cards.
For best package that might suit your needs, you need to read other posts in this website... lots of info there.. for example, under the topic "Senior request" (sic) and other topics.
