Adjusted to the time zone. Rented the flat. Survived job orientation.
What else could a girl need?
And then that moment comes, when a new friend asks for your phone number. Um, my phone isn’t set up yet. But friend me on Facebook?
But maybe you just aren’t to that level yet of being actual Facebook friends, and maybe a phone number and a phone carrier would be better. But how do you do that in a foreign country?
First answer: LOTS of research.
Second answer: a friend who speaks the language fluently.
Third answer: Prepare for this before you leave your home country!
In planning to be in Europe for longer than a couple of weeks, I knew I wanted a smart phone (I have an 100% rate of getting unlost without one, but it would still be helpful). However, keeping a smart phone on a USA phone carrier would zap my bank account.
The best option I found was to bring an unlocked phone from the USA (smart phones are cheaper in the USA than in Europe).
But here’s the trick. The phone must be GSM compatible and not CDMA (which is much more common in the USA). These words barely make any sense to me, but they refer to the type of network the phone can be on. But here, if you’re actually interested in this topic, these people seem to know what they’re talking about when it comes to GSM vs. CDMA.
I ended up being gifted an iPhone from a friend. They couldn’t tell me much about their phone’s abilities (GSM or CDMA). And so, I found this simple article about How to Determine if iPhone is GSM or CDMA. They offer a list of model numbers for both GSM and CDMA. The model number is located on the back of the iPhone as seen below.
[via]
I was thrilled to discover the iPhone was GSM! But now, I needed to know whether it was locked to a phone carrier or not. I visited my local Apple Store where I found out the phone was still locked to AT&T. The internet offers a couple of different ways to find out if your phone is unlocked, but I was near the Apple Store and figured I’d cut myself some extra steps.
In this case, AT&T offers an option for unlocking your device on their website at this page. The steps were easy to follow, but it got a bit difficult when my friend couldn’t remember some information for their old account. At that point, I filled out the AT&T form as a non-AT&T mobility customer. The unlock code came through quickly.
The final steps were completed through iTunes.
And after hours, my used iPhone was finally unlocked. Yes, it took me hours to unlock and then set up the iPhone again from iTunes. I think I spent about 8 hours or more dealing with the entirety of the project. Perhaps, it was my lack of knowledge that made me take so long to unlock the phone.
Overall, each step had clear instructions. It was just all very time consuming.
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Once in Austria, I contacted my Austrian friend, Sophie. This girl is an absolute wonder because she helped me research plans (aka she researched the options) and then we met in town. The main two options Sophie suggested were Drei or HoT.
Drei options:
one plan: 19€ per month, 1000 minutes in Austria, 200 sms in Austria, 200 sms in Europe, 1GB internet.
two plan: 29€ per month, unlimited caller minutes, 1000 sms in Austria, 2GB internet.
HoT option:
HoT fix plan: 9.90€ per month, 1000 minutes or sms, and 3GB internet.
Obviously, we went with HoT fix plan.
With Sophie’s help, I ended up purchasing a HoT SIM card at a Hofer; and then together (but mostly Sophie), we inserted the new SIM card into my unlocked iPhone and set up the phone plan. Sophie was invaluable to me since all of the phone set up required knowledge of German, and I speak only English, a bit of Spanish, and charades.
It’s absolutely wonderful to be able to check train schedules without being at the train station or sitting in front of a laptop.
If you have more questions about my journey to having a smart handy (the word used most commonly in Austria to refer to a cellphone) in Austria, write it below in the comments or check out my Facebook page.
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