OK. Help me with this. I can buy a prepay phone for use in Europe here? Or does he need to buy one when he gets there? Without a contract in Europe or with a contract in Europe?
Why can't he go find himself someplace where they speak English, take dollars, and his cell phone has an unlimited number of minutes?
I'll give it a shot. Sorry if it's a bit of a convoluted explanation....
- If his AT&T phone is unlocked (ie. not tied to his specific AT&T card), then you can use any SIM card with it. If it's locked, then you can't, however, many providers will give you the unlock code if you've been a customer for 1-2 years. I've gotten a code from T-Mobile for my phone, so now I can use any SIM card I'd like with it (phone number, etc., are all stored on the card). The only thing to be sure about is that the phone you're going to use works on 900/1800 MHz.
That said:
- My preference would be to buy a prepaid, no contract, SIM card in the US. If you can't get the phone unlocked, you can also buy a prepaid, no contract, phone in either the US or Europe.
- They often have cell phone stores right in the airport, and those folks usually speak English, so he could buy a prepaid phone there.
If you want to buy a sim card/phone here:
- I've used this company a few years ago:
http://www.cellularabroad.com/
There's lots of others out there. There's some significant advantages to buying a European SIM card or phone:
- Calls to the US are usually only a fraction of the price you'd pay otherwise. In this case, $0.10/minute (as opposed to $2/minute).
- Incoming calls, even int'l ones, don't use up your minutes. So even if he somehow runs out of minutes, you can still call him.
- He get a local (Spanish, in this case) phone number, making it cheap for people there to call him.
- As for unlimited minutes, I don't know of any company that offers that as a prepaid option. So he'd have to do a contract, which might be difficult if you're not a resident. I don't know about Spain in particular, but I know that, in Germany, they don't give contracts to people without a domestic address.
Hope that helps
-Felix