T-Mobile US to UK with Sidekick 3?

This is a reach, because the likelihood of anyone on this website using this phone is slim... but I wondered if anyone had any experience with porting a phone that isn't sold in the UK to a UK service from the US?

I have a sidekick 3 (it was a gift for xmas and is a $300 phone!) and I have a contract until December 2008 with T-Mobile USA (TMUSA from now on in my post!). I've already called and was told that they can only put an account "on hold" for up to 90 days, so that's not an option for me as I will be in the UK for a year. They cannot "transfer" my contract from TMUSA to TMUK even though the companies are connected because the "services are not the same." I have two options:

1) Have a family member take over my account, therefore I will not have to pay for a US account while gone for a year. The new family member on the plan will be able to get their own phone, so I can keep my sidekick.

or

2) When I get to the UK and get my address there at UCL, I can send info to TMUSA and they will agree to terminate my contract with them due to moving out of the country without me having to pay the $200 termination fees. Thus I could still keep my phone, but not have to pay for the US service.

My question is mainly if anyone knows if I would be able to use the sidekick in the UK. It uses a weird interface from "Danger" which is a company that provides the services specifically for the phone, but it is web based so I would assume it would work everywhere. I would basically need a plan that gave minutes but I could add a plan for unlimited web usage, IMs, emails, and texts just like the plan I have here (called Sidekick Unlimited).

I have shot off an email to TMUK about this, but I was just curious if anyone else dealt with this cancellation stuff.

Oh, and my phone is compatible with UK bands for GSM.

I'm actually in a similar situation as you, but going the other way. I've just bought a new phone in the UK (it's on UK T-mobile, but is pay as you go rather than on contract), but I'm moving to the US in Jan 2008 for at least 4 years (PhD) and I've been trying to research the possibilities of using my UK phone abroad.

From what I've gathered (although I may be wrong), it is possible to buy international pre-paid SIM cards to use in your phone when abroad and you can then make local, national and international calls whilst in a different country for pretty good rates.

The process involves getting your current phone unlocked so it can be used abroad with the SIM card.

It may be possible to use your phone in the UK anyway without doing this (as long as it is triband), but the calls will be very expensive (to use my UK phone in the US it costs about $2 per minute to make a call and $1.50 per minute to receive a call!)

It might be easiest for you to terminate your contract due to moving out of the country and then sort something out in the UK when you get here. I don't know if you would be able to use your Sidekick 3 on a UK service, but there are some very good deals on contract phones here in the UK if you needed a new phone to use here.

It depends how much you are likely to spend each month, but T-Mobile UK as well as other providers (Orange, O2, 3, Vodafone, Virgin etc.) offer good deals where you pay a fixed amount per month, which gives you so many minutes and so many texts included and often you will also get the phone free (the cost of the handset is absorbed in the monthly payment).

For example, say you currently spend more than $50 per month, you could get a 12-month contract for maybe £25 per month (about $50), which would give you 100 minutes of calltime and 200 texts each month and you'd pay either nothing or a very small amount for the actual phone. Or if you went for a more expensive contract, you would get one of the top new phones free and also several hundred minutes and texts per month.

Hi someday in uk,

Although I've heard of the sidekick 3, i havent actually used one, niether have i bought a phone over from the US to here. However, the first element i'd say to you is that it maybe that in order to keep the sidekick3 T Mobile US will want the rest of the contract paid up now in order to 'release you' from the contract. I know that's probably going to be quite a wedge to pay up front. I used to hear of people taking over phone contract way back in 1996/7 when Mercury 121 came out here and there was a frenzy over the free off peak calls. I thin since then, the phone companies (certainly here) dont tend to allow transfers of contracts to nominated people - although I may very well be wrong on this. Hopefully T Mobile US will allow something of what you've mentioned so far, but just in case they don't - then the above probably will be the case

You will need to send 'Danger' an emailto see if their services can be accessed from UK Based ISP's (who'll have a certain detectable IP address) if so, then you should be able to get their service, however if their web servers know to only 'talk to USA ISP's' then you wont get the service (this is how specific content is blocked from beiing viewed etc in diffrent countries to where it's been licenced etc)

The sidekick 3 is a GSM based phone and I think it's indeed either tri or quad band, so long as the unit is 'unlocked' then any SIM card from a UK provider should work. if it's not unlocked, get a T mobile US shop to unlock it or go to a specialist mobile phone shop to do it ( i seem to recall a rule in the US where phones out of contract for a minimum of 30,60 or 90 days will be unlocked at a T Mobile USA shop - or something like that)

Ksand24

Get the handset unlocked here, assuming it's a Tri or Quad band handset and again from the shop you got it, or by going to a specialist mobile phone shop (ebay even has unlock codes etc) When you go to the US - pop in a US carrier's SIM and you should be good to go. Before hand, ring ahead to the network you want to go for, and tell them the IMEI number - just to be on the safe side (I had to do this when I've taken my 2 handsets to the US but i was only there for 2 weeks (roaming))


Theres a little more to all this, but not worth mentioning until someday in uk upfates this post with what she's found out since.

Hope this helps you both a bit!
Cheers DtM! West London & Slough UK!

US mobiles are 2G, ie they don't use sim cards.  A friend of mine has this problem right now.  He's bought a cheap £30 UK mobile and is going to pick up a sim card when he arrives over here for a visit.

I was wondering where the phone information is stored on US phones if not on a sim card, is it on the phone itself?  A bit crap if you just want to swap phones easily!

Actually some US mobiles use a sim card, depends on the provider.  Verizon does not.  T-Mobile, Cingular, and a few others do.  I have an unlocked PEBL here, an O2 sim card that I use in the UK, a Mobile World sim card that I use to make calls to the US, and a T-Mobile prepaid sim that I use when I'm in the states, no bother at all w/switching out sims...

US mobiles are 2G, ie they don't use sim cards.  A friend of mine has this problem right now.  He's bought a cheap £30 UK mobile and is going to pick up a sim card when he arrives over here for a visit.

I was wondering where the phone information is stored on US phones if not on a sim card, is it on the phone itself?  A bit crap if you just want to swap phones easily!

Oh wow I didn't know that American cell phones didn't have sim cards. I was told by a Mobile phone company here when I go back home for a vist. I can use my cell phone from here as long as it it is unlocked. an just ask for a sim card at any cell phone company back home, my choice would have been Centennial.

A T-Mobile prepaid sim that I use when I'm in the states, no bother at all w/switching out sims

I have a prepaid T-Mobile sim card so looks like I wont have to bother with getting a sim card for my phone after all. I have a Virgin sim card. now all I have to do is just find my old cell phone that has my T-Mobile sim card in it now. thanks for the info about T-Mobile sim card.

I stand corrected.  I talked to a couple people in the US and they said they got different phones when traveling to Europe because of the 2G/Sim issue.  But I think they may have been on Verizon so maybe that was the issue.
Btw, going back to my previous question, where is all the information such as Contacts, etc stored when using a Verizon phone?

Here's what I received back:

Hello Rebecca

Thanks for your email letting me know that you're currently using a Sidekick 3 with T-Mobile USA, and will be coming to the UK for a year in September.

I understand you'd like to know whether T-Mobile UK offers a data plan with unlimited texts, IM's, email and web usage, and you'd like to be able to use your existing phone.

Our data plans are constantly changing to help keep up with the needs of new and existing customers. As you're not looking to arrive in the UK until September, it may be better to view our website and what offers we have nearer the time. For more information please click here.

If you'd like to use your Sidekick 3, you'll need to request the subsidy PIN code for your phone.

I hope you find this information useful Rebecca. I hope manage to find a plan suitable for your usage when you arrive in September.

Thanks again for taking the time to email me with your query. If we can be of any further assistance, please email us again.

Kind regards


XXX XXXX
Customer Services Email Team
T-Mobile


So what I understand from that is that I should cancel my TMUSA account when I get my address in the UK and I will have to get an unlock code (or subsidy code) for my Sidekick. Problem is, I have read from various sites on the net that T-Mobile will NOT unlock Sidekicks. This is really disconcerting because it's an expensive phone (and it has an mp3 player on it! it has everything!) and I want to use it there because it's so great! The person implied that I should look more into it when it comes closer to when I am leaving, so I think for now I will have to wait on this to find out more.

It would be beneficial to you if you could use your Sidekick in the UK, but if it turns out that you can't, it is possible to get a fairly cheap phone here which has an mp3 player, camera, video recorder and internet access (GPRS). Orange have pay as you go phones with these features from as little as $40 (although the top of the range phones can be several $100's).

So, if you wanted the benefits of similar features to the Sidekick (although not exactly the same), you wouldn't have to pay a fortune for them.

Obviously the ideal situation is that you will be able to use the Sidekick here, but if not, there are other options that don't need to cost a large amount of money.

I will be moving to the UK this THURSDAY! WOOOHOO! Anyway... I have a tmusa phone and will be bringing it with me.  I just called them to unlock my phone so I can use any sim... just told them I was moving out of the country. It was a simple process... They should be able to do the same with your sidekick. Now I have to cancel the contact and I hope I don't get charged the $200.

T-Mobile USA will unlock your phone after being a customer for six months.  It's one of the reasons I stick with them over other carriers.  Just call customer service and you can get it unlocked pretty quickly.  I even did it with one phone while waiting in the airport lounge in the US before a trip to the UK.

Cingular also uses GSM, but unlocking their phone is a bit trickier.

There are some older US GSM phones that only would work on one of the four (?) GSM frequencies, so you would come over here, throw in a new SIM card from someone (that was on a different GSM freq) and get no service.  Now that most phones are tri-band or better, that isn't as much of a problem.  (You can check the frequencies of your provider here:)

http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml

Verizon is a CDMA phone without a SIM card--the data is 'burned' into the phone.  CDMA phones in China, for example, do use SIM cards (you can even buy China CDMA/GSM Sims from vending machines over there).

TMusa wouldn't let me cancel without getting charged... but they offered me to suspended my account until my contract ends and then cancel.  So I pay nothing for like 7 months and then I can cancel and not get charged.  Doesn't make sense to me... ooo well don't have to pay.