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Using AT&T iPhone in the UK

iMartini

iMartini

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 18, 2007
33
0
Seattle, USA
Greetings, all...

I have a first-generation locked iPhone, with AT&T's Go Phone service as my carrier. I'm planning to take a 2-week trip to the UK later this year, and I'm wondering what my options are for getting data/phone service while I'm over there. I'm not crazy about the idea of paying a fortune for data roaming charges. I won't likely be making many phone calls, but I'd like to have data access. Ideally, I'd like to simply buy a prepaid SIM card from O2 and swap it into my iPhone while I'm over there. Is this idea realistic? Or should I simply put the phone on Airplane Mode and stick to WiFi?

Thanks...
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

I don't think an O2 sim will work on an AT&T iPhone. I'd probably just stick to wifi.
 
Unlock your iPhone and you can use any O2, Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile, or other SIM you like (with the exception of new Three SIMs).
 
Yep. As others have said, the only way you can use another SIM is to unlock your phone. Plus, if your Phone is pay as you go through GoPhone, you won't get any phone service over here at all with your current SIM. When I first came over here I also had AT&T GoPhone service on my iPhone. I couldn't roam or anything, 0% service. So don't plan on having any data access at all unless you're on Wifi or you unlock your phone.
 
It's very easy to unlock the 2G, if you're interested.

If you have a spare 10 minutes, you may want to read a little about QuickPwn and then use it ;)
 
Hey, just to back up what others have said. True, you can't get service on 02 without unlocking it. Also depending on where your going and how much your traveling, it might be a pain to find some decent wi-fi. Coffee shops for sure though, starbuck etc.

Enjoy the travels :)
 
UK Visit

I was there for two weeks and out the International Data Package on prior to leaving and used it only when I needed to. I mostly used WI-FI, which is all over the place, some free some not. I singed up a paygo WIf-Usage with BT and had no issues.
 
Thanks for the suggestions so far... I'm a little nervous about unlocking my iPhone, so I'll probably just stick to WiFi. I'll be spending most of my time in London, so hopefully it won't be too difficult to find hotspots.

If I decide that I need to have the ability to make calls and send/receive text messages, is it possible to buy a very cheap prepaid cell phone and set up a UK phone number? About how much would something like that cost?
 
iMartini said:
Thanks for the suggestions so far... I'm a little nervous about unlocking my iPhone, so I'll probably just stick to WiFi. I'll be spending most of my time in London, so hopefully it won't be too difficult to find hotspots.
Click to expand...

I'd like to once more recommend that you unlock your phone. If you do so, you can use O2's web bolt on to get a month of EDGE access for £7.50. London is one of the few areas where O2 has solid EDGE coverage, and having always-on data is a *lot* nicer than having to hunt down a hotspot (not to mention having to entrust your private data to it.)

Unlocking a first-gen iPhone is very, very easy (literally just a few clicks), and one hundred percent reversable. Furthermore it's nearly impossible to brick the phone; you just can't do it accidentally -- you have to make a very, very deliberate effort to do so.
 
I'd read that it's not that easy to get the Simplicity SIM from O2 without a UK address, since it is a pay-monthly contract. Not sure if you can get the web bolt-on to a PAYG phone, does anyone know?
 
Stampyhead said:
Yes, you can. Just call them up and request it.
Click to expand...

You don't even need to talk to a human representative.

Top up, make sure your balance is > £7.50, then dial the bolt-on number (4444 I think) and add it through the automated voice prompts.

Despite what some people think, you don't need a Simplicity SIM to use the iPhone, and you don't need to do anything other than add the bolt-on to get data.
 
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