Which Cellphone
Will Work in India
I think cell phone has become everyone's need these days especially when someone is traveling abroad & need to stay in touch with family/friends in India & abroad. Besides this, keeping a cell phone in your pocket or purse while traveling does provide some of us with a sense of security. Many of you will be thinking buying a cell phone in India during their travel. You do not always have to buy a new cell phone in India, may be the one you're using in foreign country might work in India.
Unlocked GSM handset, with 900/1800 frequency bands, this is the bare minimum you would need to be able to easily purchase pre-paid service acquiring a local SIM card in India.In a nutshell, you want a quad band GSM handset (850/900/1800/1900 MHz frequencies) and unlock it so you can use a foreign SIM card. Few days back, I was talking to the customer service rep at my cell phone service provider asking him the same question, which cell phone could work in India and received a similar answer as mentioned above. He did mention to call the cell phone service provider before leaving to unlock the cell phone to use it in India. To use your phone in India, buy a new prepaid Sim Card (available at most phone retailers all over the country) The cost of the Sim Cards is approximately Rupees 100 to 500. The Sim Card will give you a new local phone number. The retailer you buy the Sim Card from will also install it for you free of charge and within a short time you have a working phone with a new local number. Most retailers carry sim cards for all the major GSM phone companies like Airtel, Hutch, Idea and MTLN.
When you are ready to leave India simply revert back to your original foreign Sim Card. I have found that sometimes long distance rates for calling overseas are cheaper when using cell phones from India. Once you have installed your new sim card in your cell phone you will have a local Indian phone number. Cell phone numbers in India usually have ten digits. Ask the retailer from where you will buy your Sim card to briefly explain how to make calls within India & abroad. Most of them will assist you in this matter as one saying is true for most of Indians, we are all advisors and the advice is usually free of charge. Most cell phone companies in India allow free in coming calls to their sim card users. So even if you have no prepaid time left for your phone and cannot make outgoing calls, you can still get incoming calls. The only condition is that the validity period of your sim card should not have expired. As the cell/mobile phone numbers in India are usually 10 digits numbers like 9876959932 & sometimes foreign visitors find it hard to memorize the number. The easy way is; split the numbers into US & Canada phone format, which will make the above number as 987-695-9932.
When deciding on which Sim Card to buy, one needs to check what is important to them. The longer validity of the sim card or other bonuses like more talk time, offered by the phone companies try to sell their sim cards. Alert: Never leave any original photo ID with your retailer; give a copy (if needed) .