My wife and I are taking a much needed and long-overdue trip in October, spending ~2 weeks in Greece.

I've been overseas a great deal, but never with smartphones. This time we'd like to use our phones when we're over there, but I'm not sure how to go about doing this.

My wife has an iPhone 5 on Verizon, and I have a Nexus 4 on TMobile. What do we need to do in preparation? I'm especially puzzled about the iPhone.

The Verizon iPhone 5 has its SIM/GSM portion unlocked from the factory. You will have no problem other than trying to find a nano SIM to put in it.

I have a T-Mobile UK prepaid SIM active for travel. The data roaming cost isn't too bad, but it has to be reactivated via SMS every 50MB. I also have a Roamline SIM that's data-only. I have a plethora of VoIP applications on my phone, so that's typically all I need. If you're staying in one country, you should just get a local SIM. Of course, it helps to speak the local language when dealing with customer service (refills) or setting up data packages via SMS.

So with both phones, I'd be best off just loading a SIM into them when I get there? In order to do that, is there any need to call my US carrier to let them know I'm travelling, or are they taken out of the mix? I wouldn't have to worry about roaming charges on the CDMA side of my wife's phone

*edit*

ps- thanks for the info!

Yep, they are out of the mix once you pull the Verizon sim card. You don't need to tell Verizon what you're doing.

Usually the sim card provider will have the cutter to cut down a mini sim to nano sim.

The key thing to know/remember, is that your account with your home (USA) carrier is entirely within your SIM card, not your phone. So, for example, if you were visiting me here in Canada, I could put my SIM card into your phone, and it instantly becomes "my phone" with my number. Ring or text my number, and your phone receives it because of my SIM card inside.

Ditto for Greece. Get a local SIM card there, insert into phone, and the phone is now entirely a "Greek" phone, with a Greek number, on a Greek network. Except it still has all of your apps, preferences, and customizations intact.

Similarly, you could insert your USA SIM card into a phone of a Greek host, and make calls on it -- billed to your USA account.

So the account is with the SIM card.

As above, you can just turn up at your nearest mobile phone store when you land and get a couple of SIMs. Vodafone have more English language support, Wind and Cosmote tend to have cheaper deals, but really there's not a lot in it.

You will need to show your passport in the store when you buy the sims.

But what do they call a quarter pounder in Greece?

Except when it's a CDMA carrier and phone, such as Verizon or Sprint. Then the phone is the account.

The iPhone 5 is an LTE "world phone" by Verizon's standards. It means that at home it sits on CDMA (Voice, text and slow data) with the phone being the account, then also sits on Verizon's LTE (fast data) network using the SIM as the account.

If the SIM is pulled and replaced with a GSM or other LTE carrier, then the CDMA side of the phone shuts down, and the voice, text and data accounts all are pulled from the SIM.

Overall I'm glad that the CDMA tech path is a dead one, and all CDMA carriers worldwide are migrating to LTE long term. Once they start using voice over LTE and deactivate the CDMA networks, the concept of a phone being the account goes away entirely.

This must be some strange usage of the word "fast" that I was previously unaware of...

Well, like any cellular signal, it's going to depend on where you are at the time, but I was regularly getting over 25Mbps, which is five times faster than the average home broadband connection in the US. It's plenty fast for most people.

My problem was that I was using this fast connection on the Galaxy Nexus, which wasn't capable of rendering pages fast enough to make the speed matter. Now I'm on HSPA+ which is still pretty fast but slower than LTE, and my load times are way faster.


Thanks, everyone, for the SIM card suggestions. It was good to learn more and confirm what I knew. I'll look for a phone store when we get there. It's mostly for email and stuff. I plan to download areas on Google maps when we're walking around, and we're aiming for hotels with WiFi, so we should be pretty set. Thanks again for the input.

Does anyone know if the SIM card ejector for the Nexus 4 should be able to eject the one on the iPhone? I doubt my wife received the ejector with her phone since she got it from the government.

The ejector that come with the iphone is trash. Just use a straightened paper clip, more effective and higher quality. I brought one with me to China, as their paper clips just don't measure up to ours.

LTE, at least here on the west coast, is never what I would call fast, and certainly not anywhere near as fast as wifi, on my iphone 5. 3G in Taiwan was way faster than LTE is here.

The old Liquidmetal ones were pretty nice. I think they stopped shipping those sometime during the 3GS era though, and changed over to the basically a paperclip ones.


Just need to be at the right part of the west coast T-Mobile LTE in Seattle frequently hits 35-40mbit easily. I did find Verizon LTE to be quite fast too on my trip last year, but this was usually in less populated areas. Don't really remember how fast it was in the larger east coast cities.

The Nexus 4 ejector is too short for the iPhone. The iPhone ejector will work for the Nexus 4, however. I carry an iPhone SIM ejector on my keyring.

Does anyone know what power adapter I need for Greece?

For the iPhone? It charges by USB, even TV sets can charge it.

The apple charger is 100v to 240v, all you need is the plug adapter kit from CVS.

Travel tip for Canada/USA folk: take along an ordinary 2-prong household extension cord with three outlets. Then get a single plug adapter for use with the extension.

Plugs in B&B's and hotels tend to be in inconvenient locations, and few and far between at that. Having the extension cord with three outlets solves both problems.

And with most such cords, even a three-prong plug device (eg. notebook charger) can usually be connected using the "end" outlet on the cable.

Cheers

Um, yes, I'm aware of all this...


I was trying to figure out which adapter to get. Is Greece not standardized around one outlet type?

*edit*
I see that there's a standard European plug type. It's been a while since I've been over there so I wasn't sure. I'll just order a 3-pack of adapters I found on Amazon


Good tip, Mark. I do usually bring a travel power strip, but it's a three-pronged grounded strip, so I don't know if it would fit into the adapters well or not.

Looks like (from a google search on 'greece power plug') they use the same style plug as the main part of europe; two round pins in a flat plug (ungrounded only) or round plug (ungrounded or grounded (2 tabs 180 dwgrees apart on the perimeter)- but having somewhat smaller diameter on the pins than the 'normal' european. Flat plug fits in the round outlet, both ungrounded and grounded ones, as it's mainly used for double isolated devices. Ungrounded round plugs don't fit grounded outlets.

Yep, "standard". Greece uses about 5 of those standards. That 3 pack will get you where you need to be.

I love the socket they're using in China now. It's designed to fit everyone's plugs.

I smile every time I hear somebody asking about EU plug standards, because there's no such thing and I so wish there was. There are many different national standards, each nation having its own (often more than one).

But:
Spain, France, and Germany seem to use the same power plugs/sockets, or maybe I should say they all use compatible versions of the same plugs.
In Italy, we use TWO different plug standards than Germany, France, Spain, but German (as we call it) standard is becoming more and more popular and, also, adapters cost few Euros at the shop round the corner. Also, more and more popular "universal" sockets are used in power strips or walls. I *think* Greece is just like Italy in this regard.
UK uses a different standard than the above.
I just happen to be in Edinburgh and I am regretting I only brought one universal adapter from Rome. I just had to buy another one here for £19, because in my experience no matter how well you plan, something unexpected happens and you need to plug more things, or plug them in different places you thought you would. Oh and yes, nineteen pounds.

Definitely, get a complete plug converter set + a power strip, as Mark suggested. Or, if you think a power strip takes too much space in your suitcase, then at least bring two plug adapter sets. I would get one that also has one or more USB port on, as those can get very handy.

I'll be in Italy (Milan and Rome) in a couple of weeks. This is good to hear! I have a few old Euro adaptors around and was hoping they'd work!

To hijack the thread slightly, how ubiquitous are free Wifi spots in Italy? I'm not sure if I should just spring for TIM card while there or not. Last time I was in Italy was about 12 years ago and I'm sure things have changed in that regard! i won't really need to make many if any phone calls, just for data really.

In Rome and Milan you will find free WiFi in possibly 50% restaurants, bars, etc. Which however means it's not free: you're expected to order food or drinks. You'll find free WiFi in malls, occasionally. You may get lucky and get free wifi in the streets, but just because somebody left their WiFi network open. There are some public WiFi places offered by the City itself, but, don't rely on those.

If I were you, I'd just get a USB-Mobile adapter with a data SIM inside, and connect it to my laptop. Or, get a SIM to place in your mobile phone and then use tethering.
In Rome and Milan all operators will just work great, so get the less expensive - Wind is pretty good these days. USB-Mobile network adapters will be called "pennetta internet" (="internet pendrive").

How expensive are data prices for the SIMs I'm likely to find in Greece? I'm ok with spending a little, but I don't want to be paying 30 euros for 20MB of data or something...

Note that I don't bring a "power strip" -- too bulky. Instead, this is what I pack for continental EU, including Italy:

I can't speak for Greece, but, as a reference, in Italy you can buy a Wind SIM at 15 Euro which includes 10 Euro SIM cost and 5 Euro data traffic. And of course you may add as much more data traffic as you wish. My guess is that other countries will have similar costs, among the jungle of data plans available.


Edit:
Sorry, I forgot the important part: the amt of MB/Euro changes of course depending on what plan you choose. Again just as a reference, with 9 Euro you can buy 1 month of traffic with a top of 2GB data. It means you pay 9 Euros up front and as you start to transfer data you have 1 month of data access and you can download up to 2GB. After a month, you need to pay more. Now, please keep in mind that such plans change continuously, so you may find a better or worse deal. Or, since it is Greece, completely different plans. Mine is just an example to give you a rough idea of what costs are.

Yeah, that was what I had in mind. I have a dozen of those lying around I'll bring a couple of those with me. I have the adapters, but I might also pick up one of those multi-adapters too.

Taym, thanks for the numbers. If it's anything close to what you're saying, I'll be fine with it. Anything close to 9 Euros for 2GB of data is pretty darn good compared to rates in the US.

Italian AC power outlet.

Thanks I'll be taking a look at the "penetta" option. My phone is unlocked, but with AT&T firmware so I'm not sure the data tethering will work or not when I put in an Italian SIM.

Those data rates sound very good! Thanks again!

I just got back home and I can help a bit more.

So, yes, what Mark posted is a "universal" socket that will accept all three plug types you find here in Italy: see attachment.



From left to right:
Italian LARGE plug, supporting up to 16A
Italian SMALL plug, supporting up to 10A
German plug.

Both the Italian plugs above come in two version: with ground PIN (center pin ) and without. Sockets will accept both with and without ground versions, of course.

However, often in Italy you will find sockets that are NOT as the one Mark posted, and will only accept Italian plugs. I don't have any such sockets in my home, but usually you do. So I can't take a picture to show them to you. In any case, I do recommend you get a universal plug adapter.

I am telling all this because I am *almost* sure (!) Greece has the very same standards as Italy, that is a mixture of the national standard (same as Italy) and the (nowadays) almost-universal German standard, so good chances are all the above will work just the same in Greece.

I just googled "Greece Power Sockets" and results seem to confirm this.


Edit: Ok, below an accurate power socket picture. This is what you'll find in most placed in Italy, and most likely in Greece. If you look at the power socket in the right, the one with the white frame, you'll see how it includes an Italian standard socket accepting both Italian large and small AND also a German socket. Expect that combination in most places.

I thought it would be good to update you guys on how the trip went in regards to what I was asking about here. I'll start with the phone.

The first day we got to Athens, we decided to walk around the Plaka to see the sites and take in the city. While doing so, we made sure to keep an eye out for any store that sold phones. We eventually found a shop on Syntagma Square (where their parliament building is). They were clearly very comfortable with selling SIM cards to tourists, and the person we worked with spoke excellent English.

She also spoke excellent "up-sell" There were dozens of options we could add to our prepaid plans, all tiered out very well. We could get 1, 2, 3 or more GB of bandwidth. We could get Greece-to-Greece and Greece-to-USA minutes in 100 minute blocks. We could get texts in various increments (can't remember, we didn't get any). We ended up with 1GB of data for my wife, 3GB for me since I wanted to stay in touch with my clients back home just in case. We also got some minutes for calling between phones (even though we didn't plan to split up much), and we got minutes for calls home.

I can say with absolute certainty that 1GB is way more than you need if you aren't using Netflix or Youtube. When I got there I disabled everything on my phone that automatically transferred data for me (Google+ and Dropbox photo uploads, Doggcatcher podcast downloads, etc). I then used the phone for ALL navigation, checked email all the time, browsed the web a ton, all the normal stuff. I was regularly looking up information about things we were seeing. None of this added up to more than about 500GB.

So why did I run out of data by the end of the trip?

Well, our first hotel claimed to have WiFi access, but it was terrible. The data speeds weren't enough to get pretty much anything done. So I foolishly decided to tether my laptop to my phone because I desperately needed to use my laptop for something. Now, I thought I'd disabled Dropbox and the Google Drive app on my laptop, but it looks like that wasn't the case. Soon enough my phone is giving me the bandwidth alert I'd set to 2.3GB, and I immediately stop the tethering. Naturally, this was about two days into our trip, and I'm freaking out because we still have another 12 days and I only have 700MB left.

Thankfully, I ran out on our very last day of sight seeing, and that only happened because I decided to download a podcast for our flight back to Athens from Santorini. My wife still had plenty of data left, so I figured we would be fine and I was right.

So yes, I think 1GB is plenty, but get more just in case

Now for power outlets:

In every situation, we basically saw outlets that look like this:


I believe this is the German style plug, right? Well, I had brought these along, when I guess I should have brought these.

The ones I brought still worked, but they barely reached the outlet enough, and would constantly fall out. It probably wasn't the safest thing to do, but it was what we had and it worked.

I brought those adapters and a few extension cords like the ones we discussed (I have about 20 of them lying around here), and it was a great system.

Thanks for the help with the phones and the power stuff, folks! I appreciate it!

Yes, and used in most of Continental Europe. Mandated in humid/wet places like bathroom and kitchen. In "dry" places, I think most countries still allow the 2-pole non-earthed version.

In Sweden it's been a while since I spotted a new item for sale with the non-grounded round plug. It's all either the round grounded or the flat non-grounded (IIRC requiring the item to be 'double insulated').
Not sure if that is by regulation or because of European standardization/simplification of production.

For outlets, it used to be that grounding was required for outlets within reach of water. Nowadays all [new] outlets must be grounded. GFI required for bathrooms and outdoors.

Anyone familiar with Frankfurt airport? Will I be able to purchase a cheap SIM for text & calls from a store there? I do see an O2 store listed, but don't know what they offer plan wise.
Heading in Frankfurt proper is not an option as I'll be stuck in the conference hotel as soon as I land, but I know SWMBO would appricate being able to contact me quickly just in case.

One of the podcasts I listen to had a sponsor that sells international SIMs before you travel. May be worth a look: http://www.simporium.com

Also worth noting, T-Mobile plans in the US now allow unlimited texting and 2G data when traveling to 100 countries at no additional charge. http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage.html#globalcoverage

+1 for this. I got an iPad mini retina with t-mo and used it in the UK and China. Worked just fine, obviously capped speed but very liberating to be able to roam for $0

And on the same subject, Three UK have "Feel At Home" which lets you use most of your usual tariff in a few countries - notably the US. This is available to prepaid/pay-as-you-go customers too, so convenient to just get a free SIM sent, top it up and then use it for cheap(er) data.

http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home