Cell phone in Russia?

[Emily Saunders]

The below is excellent advice -- the unlocked phone is something you  
never hear about until you hear about it.  My husband and I just got  
back from living in Russia for a few years and we both had MTS cards  
that worked fine and our Russian-purchased Sony-Ericsson tri-band  
phones now work fine here in the U.S.  If you do not already have a GSM  
phone, you may want to consider getting one there.  It's fairly easy,  
the salesman could likely set you up with a SIM card in the showroom  
and then provided you get a tri-band phone, you should have no problem  
using it back in the U.S. (with the added benefit that  
Russian-purchased phones come with Russian fonts so that you can  
text-message in Cyrillic!)

One additional note, I believe that you will need to present a valid  
registration when you go to pick up a SIM card.  Also roaming (at least  
in Spring 2004) needed to be specially "opened" and typically roaming  
can be opened either for the length of time of your registration or for  
the length of validity of a major credit card -- your choice.  ;-)  So  
if you plan to travel outside of Moscow, or wherever the program is,  
make sure that you've открыли роуминг.

MTS, by the way, works in the metro (most of the time) but I believe it  
is a bit more expensive than Megafon.  The last time I got a new MTS  
number it took about an hour to go through the paperwork, but was not  
particularly more painful than dealing with Cingular or T-Mobile here.   
It can make a big difference which office you go into and at what time  
of day.  If you have the luxury to go in during prime working hours the  
lines may be shorter.

Anyway, an additional two cents.

Emily Fields Saunders
Olympia, WA

On Mar 3, 2006, at 1:36 PM, lynne debenedette wrote:

> If you buy a phone here that works on the frequencies used there (a  
> tri-band
> phone, for example), you should be able to switch out the SIM card  
> when you
> get there IF you have an "unlocked" phone; most US cell providers  
> "lock"
> their phones precisely so that you cannot take their phone and use it  
> with a
> different provider. If you've had the phone and the US cell contract  
> more
> than 6 months or a year I think the company will unlock the phone; you  
> can
> also buy unlocked phones on ebay and other places, and there are  
> websites
> for services that offer unlocking for a small fee. You'll have a  
> different
> phone number, of course, with the new SIM card.  Last fall in Russia I  
> used
> a Megafon card with my US-purchased Ericsson phone and (in Petersburg)  
> was
> able not only to call, but also, via a Bluetooth connection to my  
> laptop,
> use the Megafon account to access email via GPRS.
>
>
> --  
> Lynne deBenedette
> Sr. Lecturer in Russian
> Dept. of Slavic Languages
> Brown University
> Providence RI 02912
> email: lynne_debenedette-at-brown.edu (replace -at- with @)
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> --
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                     http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> --
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------