Leaving Sim Card Home When Traveling International?

[ET iPhone Home]

So I have a Sprint CDMA 4S and plan on giving the phone to my parents in Sept./Oct. when they travel abroad to Asia on vacation for about 2-3 months. (I hope the new iPhone will come out by then, so I can just add it to my plan, not leaving me without a phone.)

Because I'm afraid they might inadvertently change the settings on the 4S and I'd be hit with these roaming international charges, I advised them to leave the Sim Card Home here with me in the States and purchase a local sim card to call locally/internationally.

So my questions are (this being my and now their first iPhone):

1. Would there be a disadvantage to leaving the sim card here at home?

2. Are they able to still text message by way of wi-fi & iMessage without the "original sim card" in the slot and not be hit with local/international text charges?

Also, when I have my 4S in my pocket it will at times call the last number I dialed without me knowing it. This has happened to other friends of mine that have an iPhone - wouldn't want this to happen to my parents if they left the "original sim card" in the iphone and later dialed my number without them knowing it dialed while abroad. As you can read, I'm covering all possible scenarios.

THANKS !!!

 

[wordoflife]

The sim card is only used for international roaming, so if you don't put it in the phone, they can't incur other charges. Yes, they can do everything you mentioned on wifi or with a local sim.

 

[ET iPhone Home]

The sim card is only used for international roaming, so if you don't put it in the phone, they can't incur other charges. Yes, they can do everything you mentioned on wifi or with a local sim.

Thanks for your reply. Let me ask you, if I remove the original sim card, does it require to still have those settings off: Roaming OFF & Data OFF? Or would it not matter whether they set them or not since the sim card is left at home? THANKS !!!

 

[wordoflife]

Thanks for your reply. Let me ask you, if I remove the original sim card, does it require to still have those settings off: Roaming OFF & Data OFF? Or would it not matter whether they set them or not since the sim card is left at home? THANKS !!!

I'd really suggest you call Sprint. Basically, your phone has CDMA for connecting to Sprint's network and GSM (the sim card) for roaming since most countries use GSM. However, some countries do use CDMA (same technology as Sprint) so your parents might pick up roaming on those networks, if they are available in the country they will be traveling.

or they might not at all ... if CDMA roaming is completely disabled on the iPhone. That's why you should call Sprint to find out.

If the iPhone does have cdma roaming and the country they go to has CDMA carriers, then they probably should put the phone in airplane mode unless they put a foreign sim in. If the iphone doesnt have cdma roaming, they dont have to worry.