If a trip abroad is planned to a country such as Japan, China, the United States or India, there may be a doubt that your cell phone will work or not. The same dilemma can arise in case you want to buy a mobile phone on an online store, maybe a Chinese smartphone below cost, of which you may have the doubt that it does not work in Italy with local mobile networks.
To see if the cell phone works in a country and if the cellular network signal picks up, two factors must be considered:
1) In Italy cellular networks are GSM and 3G (3G is also called WCDMA)
In Italy the standard network does not work in many countries, the CDMA .
A CDMA phone may not work on a GSM network (and the reverse is also true)
On Wikipedia you can find the table to see mobile phone networks in almost all countries of the world:
- Europe
- Asia Pacific countries
- Middle East and Africa
- America.
2) The frequency band that telephony operators use in the various countries.
For example, mobile phone networks in Italy use the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz frequencies, while the GSM frequency bands in America operate on the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz frequencies.
The 3G network and UMTS connections operate on the 2100 MHz frequency worldwide.
For this reason, a mobile phone that supports 3G should work all over the world without problems .
If you are not sure about the characteristics of your mobile phone, you can search for it by writing the name on the GSM Arena website to find the complete card with all the frequencies in which it works.
Even better, on the WillmyPhoneWork website it is possible to indicate the brand and model of the phone and then the country where you want to check if it works to know, with certainty, whether it is okay or not .
To summarize, you are sure that a cell phone works abroad if it is UMTS / 3G or if it is a quad band, otherwise you have to see if it uses GSM or CDMA networks and check the frequencies in which the operators work.
READ ALSO: 2G-3G coverage map for mobiles and mobile internet in Italy (Tim, Tre, Wind, Vodafone) and in the world
Keep in mind that when traveling to another country with the cell phone, the operator in your country has roaming agreements with a telephony operator in the country of origin that allows you to use your network.
In the appendix to this article we also mention the Howcallabroad.com site which lists all the international prefixes to call from one country to another.
For any clarification or experience on the subject, please leave a comment.
READ ALSO: 6 Tech tips for traveling abroad with your mobile, tablet and laptop always ready
