Mobile phones.. egypt?

Question

OK.. I live in egypt where technology is not the greatest. There are lotsa mob phones in the US that i wanna buy. I wanna know if a mob phone i buy from abroad (us) would work here.. oh by the way we dont have cingular here but we do have other brands (vodafone n mobinil). I also wanted to know if the i-phone would work here and if the N77 would work here. Sorry i know im asking alot but i would also like to know if you know any cool phones.. thanks soo much! plz answer A.S.A.P.. and if you dont know plz dun give me wrong info .. thnx

Answer 1

Vodaphone Egypt and MobiNil both use GSM 900MHz systems. Any GSM phone capable of 900MHz operations will work provided that it is unlocked. Most mobile phones sold through a provider are locked to a single carrier as they subsidize the cost of the phone and don't want to lose that subsidy to someone who is just going to cancel straight away and use the phone on another carrier. There are a few ways to go about getting an unlocked phone:

1. You could purchase the mobile phone outright from the carrier, paying the unsubsidized price and they will unlock the phone. This is usually $200 more than the sticker price, but can vary.

2. You could purchase a mobile phone that was used long enough that the carrier is willing to give the current active owner of the phone the subsidy code allowing you to unlock it.

3. You could purchase from a retailer who sells phones direct from the manufacturer as the phones are unlocked by default. This is usually somewhat cheaper than option 1.

4. You can try and unlock a locked handset yourself by searching on the internet for instructions how. It usually requires a data cable or some other connection to a computer and can require flashing the phone which can damage the phone if done improperly.

5. You can take your handset to an unlocking service. There are also such services that will let you post in the handset or claim to be able to do it remotely via the internet, but I'd be wary of these options as there are many scams out there and dealing internationally you don't always have the same recourses if the transactions should go awry.

The two phones you specifically mentioned, the iPhone and the N77 will work on both Vodaphone Egypt and MobiNil as long as they're unlocked as I mentioned before. There is something else you should know about using unlocked phones on your local carriers. These phones are not automatically configured to use data services on your local carrier. For example, you will be able to make/receive voice calls and send/receive SMS messages, but wireless web, EDGE data, MMS (picture/audio messaging) will not work out of the box. Unbranded phones should allow you to configure the settings necessary to get these features to work, with the cooperation of your carrier or choice providing the necessary information to you. Unlocked phones from another carrier sometimes lock out these settings so that you cannot change them. Your carrier MAY be able to get around that, but if they don't sell the same model phone it's probably unlikely. You could flash the phone with firmware from an unbranded model but again this will require a data cable and there is a risk associated with doing it.