How To Make Best Use Of Uk Iphone...?

[schmutzie]

I am going to Thailand for maybe upto 6 months.

I have an o2 iPhone contract which doesn't expire until next year - didn't realise I would be going to Thailand when I took out the contract.

AFAIK I have two options:

- Drop contract to cheapest monthly rate

- Sell/Give phone and contract to friend

If I had taken out insurance apparently I could've cancelled it after 9 months or something.

Anyway, that's not the point - I like my stupid iPhone and was wondering if there's any clever ways to make use of it in Thailand:

Of course I can unlock it and pay for some True or other Thai contract - but then I'm just leaking money in two places.

What I'm trying to find is some innovative service where I can roam and (even better) use my UK free minutes - but be in Thailand.

I really don't know, but some innovative VOIP service?

If not, then what is a good choice of SIM for iPhone in Thailand? I don't believe that True has achieved WiFi coverage so I'll give that a miss.

Although unfortunately that's what makes the phone interesting.

Actually, maybe I should just get rid of the bloody contract...Sorry bit of a rant.

[bledu]

I am going to Thailand for maybe upto 6 months.

I have an o2 iPhone contract which doesn't expire until next year - didn't realise I would be going to Thailand when I took out the contract.

AFAIK I have two options:

- Drop contract to cheapest monthly rate

- Sell/Give phone and contract to friend

If I had taken out insurance apparently I could've cancelled it after 9 months or something.

Anyway, that's not the point - I like my stupid iPhone and was wondering if there's any clever ways to make use of it in Thailand:

Of course I can unlock it and pay for some True or other Thai contract - but then I'm just leaking money in two places.

What I'm trying to find is some innovative service where I can roam and (even better) use my UK free minutes - but be in Thailand.

I really don't know, but some innovative VOIP service?

If not, then what is a good choice of SIM for iPhone in Thailand? I don't believe that True has achieved WiFi coverage so I'll give that a miss.

Although unfortunately that's what makes the phone interesting.

Actually, maybe I should just get rid of the bloody contract...Sorry bit of a rant.

I'am in Chiang Mai with a French iPhone. I use TRUE (that has no 3G but only Edge in the city and GRPS outside) with a prepaid untilited Internet connection for 250 bahts/month + cheap call/SMS/MMS rates. There are some TRUE Wifi points in Chiang Mai but the coverage is not extensive enough and I did not take that option. If I would be interested, the True unilimited Edge/Grps/Wifi fee is 450 bahts/month.

[schmutzie]

Thanks - so you've had your iPhone unlocked, right?

What's the deal with 250 baht - internet over Edge is torturous...

[boney]

I am going to Thailand for maybe upto 6 months.

I have an o2 iPhone contract which doesn't expire until next year - didn't realise I would be going to Thailand when I took out the contract.

AFAIK I have two options:

- Drop contract to cheapest monthly rate

- Sell/Give phone and contract to friend

If I had taken out insurance apparently I could've cancelled it after 9 months or something.

Anyway, that's not the point - I like my stupid iPhone and was wondering if there's any clever ways to make use of it in Thailand:

Of course I can unlock it and pay for some True or other Thai contract - but then I'm just leaking money in two places.

What I'm trying to find is some innovative service where I can roam and (even better) use my UK free minutes - but be in Thailand.

I really don't know, but some innovative VOIP service?

If not, then what is a good choice of SIM for iPhone in Thailand? I don't believe that True has achieved WiFi coverage so I'll give that a miss.

Although unfortunately that's what makes the phone interesting.

Actually, maybe I should just get rid of the bloody contract...Sorry bit of a rant.

Hi

I have an O2 i phone with a contract. I live here in Thailand.

There is no way you can use the free min calls in Thailand. only UK

you can use the free txt service but with every 1 text you send it will cost you 4, so if you have 500 free txts then u can only use 125 txt free.

What I did was jailbreak my phone then unlock it so I could use a local sim card.

I did this free on the internet. then all you have to do is buy a local sim card and it works fine and saves you money...

[cowman1]

Well, I just got a new iphone and I am loving it. As for wifi coverage, I am in Hua Hin on a short break at the moment and I am surfing the net from my condo room, also when I went out last night I could connect via log in password at the restaurant. In fact they seem to be well "hooked up" here! I guess it depends where you are going to be staying for the 6 months. I use wifi at home to, so you could always get a cheap internet contract, and have it at home if you are going to be permanent in the same place. If not, and you are in hotels they all seem to have wifi these days. Also, you can use skype to call home through wifi and it works out a lot cheaper! I would just buy a pay as you go sim here, and keep the iphone.

Edited July 7, 2009 by cowman1

[sushi5734]

I have a UK O2 iphone 3G here in Thailand, and unfortunatley theres no way that I know of to use your inclusive minutes whilst over here. Get it unlocked and jailbroken which is easy enough to do, just check out youtube for walk through guides, you can pay a shop 1000 baht (£20) to do it but save yourself a few quid and do it yourself no special equipment is required just the usb cable and a PC.

Get a pay as you sim card once you arrive they are cheap and better than UK pay as you go in my opinion I use AIS 12call and that has cheap calls home and a good internet bundle for 119 Baht, 3G coverage here is pretty crap but its still good enough to check emails facebook etc.

keep hold of your O2 sim card as once in blue moon the iphone goes into recovery mode (mine did it a couple of weeks ago) and requires you to plug the iphone into itunes in order to restore it and you will need the original sim card to do this.

obviously be VERY careful with it, they are very desireable here in Thailand as mobile phones in general cost quite a bit more than in the UK and the iphone is the most sought after. Two of my freinds had thier mobiles stolen on Koh Samet last year whilst they were sat on the beach along with alot of other people, they had thier bags with them at all times. Oh and be careful with it on the night buses from Bangkok to Koh Samui, Phuket etc.

Don't want to alarm you you're not likely to get jumped in the strees (this isn't London after all!!!) Thailand is pretty safe and you won't have any probs but anywhere that there are lots of tourist are together will attract the occasional petty thief.

I am going to Thailand for maybe upto 6 months.

I have an o2 iPhone contract which doesn't expire until next year - didn't realise I would be going to Thailand when I took out the contract.

AFAIK I have two options:

- Drop contract to cheapest monthly rate

- Sell/Give phone and contract to friend

If I had taken out insurance apparently I could've cancelled it after 9 months or something.

Anyway, that's not the point - I like my stupid iPhone and was wondering if there's any clever ways to make use of it in Thailand:

Of course I can unlock it and pay for some True or other Thai contract - but then I'm just leaking money in two places.

What I'm trying to find is some innovative service where I can roam and (even better) use my UK free minutes - but be in Thailand.

I really don't know, but some innovative VOIP service?

If not, then what is a good choice of SIM for iPhone in Thailand? I don't believe that True has achieved WiFi coverage so I'll give that a miss.

Although unfortunately that's what makes the phone interesting.

Actually, maybe I should just get rid of the bloody contract...Sorry bit of a rant.

[wood]

Owe 2

the clues in the name..

SchMutzie,

be careful, I too was in BKK on business 4 weeks ago with my owe 2 iPhone, I did pay and set up the bolt on to give me 10 mb free roaming for £17 pm, I was there 8 days and used the phone for 21 mins calls to blighty and perhaps 10 mins to download e mails, ( I was very careful ) came home to a bill for £ 265 for 1 months charge.

I typically use £ 55 pm in the uk.

There is no comeback on these charges.

I suggest you leave the itoy in the uk and take a spare and buy a payg sim over there.

Or better still, go straight to MBK and sell it for 30,000 baht. Also remember that if you get it jail broken over there, you will still be paying your monthly charge to good old owe 2.

Ps a lot of posters talk of scams In thailand, believe me they are nothing compared to what owe 2 can take from you.

[richard_smith237]

Owe 2

the clues in the name..

SchMutzie,

be careful, I too was in BKK on business 4 weeks ago with my owe 2 iPhone, I did pay and set up the bolt on to give me 10 mb free roaming for £17 pm, I was there 8 days and used the phone for 21 mins calls to blighty and perhaps 10 mins to download e mails, ( I was very careful ) came home to a bill for £ 265 for 1 months charge.

I typically use £ 55 pm in the uk.

There is no comeback on these charges.

I suggest you leave the itoy in the uk and take a spare and buy a payg sim over there.

Or better still, go straight to MBK and sell it for 30,000 baht. Also remember that if you get it jail broken over there, you will still be paying your monthly charge to good old owe 2.

Ps a lot of posters talk of scams In thailand, believe me they are nothing compared to what owe 2 can take from you.

A similar thing happened to me recently with an iPhone and AIS (Thai) contract. My bill showed GPRS-MMS usage totalling more than 12 hrs and B3000 out of 24 hrs. I had not used my iPhone, but had simply turned it on. For whatever reasons while in a neighboring country my iPhone automatically connected to GPRS. AIS have agreed to look into this and have said that they will not charge me until they have identified clear usage which they can measure in the volume of data traffic (i.e. KB downloaded and sent).

To the Op. Using GPRS / EDGE over here on a roaming contract will be prohibitively costly, certainly more than 6 months of remaining O2 minimal contract with no usage.

I have observed that when traveling overseas for more than a few weeks its far more cost effective to use a second phone and purchase a local sim with pre-paid credit and use the home based roaming contact as a back up for emergencies. You could even swap the UK O2 sim into the backup phone and use a cracked iPhone with a local sim and use GPRS-EDGE. This has worked many many times without issue with the exception of the occurrence mentioned above. Had I stayed longer than 24 hrs my charge could have been significantly more give this error.

I know of no one who has been able to successfully transfer minutes onto another countries network. I know of no one who has looked into postponing a contract until their return, but it could be worth checking into.

[Aswin]

pay someone to takeover your remaining contract. keep phone. jailbreak and unlock for use in Thailand.

or sell the iPhone in Thailand, may be you'll break even.

[schmutzie]

pay someone to takeover your remaining contract. keep phone. jailbreak and unlock for use in Thailand.

or sell the iPhone in Thailand, may be you'll break even.

I agree, these are the only financially sensible options.

But would loose the investment already madeincl. phone - but might be a good thing to escape this thing which is prob overkill for my needs.

For the record, I ALWAYS use secondary phones when abroad and local PAYG SIM - lo-cost, no-frills models that no-one would think about stealing. the iPhone stays in the room safe and is only used for browsing and email checking on the hotel network.

For the posters about data charges - there's a list of things to check when abroad to avoid charges, but you're prob aware of these. I was forced to use it for calls to my bank at some point. Ended up paying £90 in call charges (I think it's £2 per minute for out-of-zone-whatever calls).

That's before I realised my Thai SIM offered cheap international call rates - DOH!

My post was simply trying to dream up a scheme that would allow me to retain the contract yet somehow magically tap into the free minutes.

TruPhone, Skype, Lebara, Call re-direction services etc. - just thought maybe some trick had dropped below my radar.

I sometimes wonder why we seem to be so technologically "mobile" yet contracts/providers are so geo-centric in their offerings.

Bring on the truly global telco...

I can drop the contract to £30 - as I will have another 8 months by the time I leave, that'll mean something like £180-240 down the drain (nominally going for 6 months). I guess I have to decide whether I can live with that.

[blackcountryboing]

I am in the same situation. Got the iphone but had to get the contract to get the phone and never use the minutes. I also use my phone while working abroad so wanted a proper UK number, if you get a pay as you go, with most networks you end up with this crap method of having to text to make a phone call when roaming.

I have unlocked and Jailbroke the ipone 3g and use it everywhere.

I also have a Nokia I use as a standby incase of any problems.

If you have internet, you can share the wireless from your laptop to the iphone and use skype also.