Will it be possible to use the iPhone 3G in the U.S. and in Germany affordably?

June 9, 2008 2:02 PM

Will it be possible to use the iPhone 3G in the U.S. and in Germany affordably?

After following the WWDC keynote today, I am considering getting an iPhone 3G. However, I'm going to be going to Germany next Spring for about 5 months, and it would be awesome if I could bring the phone with me and use it there with German provider, somehow. The iPhone supports Germany, but I'm not at all familiar about how service plans would work with that. Would AT&T allow me to suspend service and use a German provider, or am I being unrealistic? I'm sure I could use the phone with AT&T in Germany, but the roaming rates would likely be ridiculous.

posted by deansfurniture5 to technology (4 comments total)

You should call AT&T to find out for sure. May as well get it straight from the source (and record the name of whoever gave you that information AT the company providing that information), rather than trusting anecdotal evidence from internet strangers....

I say this not to snark, but to save you some hassle - the most correct information should (in theory) come from the company itself. Their job is to be able to help you with this kind of stuff.
posted by twiggy at 2:29 PM on June 9, 2008

Your best bet would still be to unlock the iPhone and then swap the AT&T SIM card for the SIM card of a local provider. AT&T's international plans are not cheap. At present, neither Apple or AT&T will unlock iPhones so you'll have to download and use one of the jailbreaking programs to do it. It's unsupported but the hacks are fairly mature now. By next spring, I'm sure the programs will have been updated for the new iPhone software.
posted by junesix at 2:46 PM on June 9, 2008

No, AT&T won't suspend service. Even so, you'll have to wait for a 3G unlock, which will take some time.

The best choice would to find a cheap 1st gen unlocked iPhone and use it in Germany, then sell it when you come back. The 1st gen will be upgradable to the same software, the only thing missing is the 3G and GPS.

Unless of course having 3G is worth maintaining the plan in the US (5months x $70/month).
posted by wongcorgi at 4:37 PM on June 9, 2008

It will be subsidy-locked to AT&T service, and you have to believe that Apple has learned a lot about security from the first gen, so the new ones won't be so easy to unlock.

What that means is that you could use it in Germany (if it supports the right frequencies) but you'd be using it as an AT&T user who is roaming.

By the way, Europe uses different frequencies than North America. Cell frequencies here are 800 MHz and 1900 MHz. In Europe it's 900 MHz and 1800 MHz. If the phone doesn't explicitly state that it supports 900 and/or 1800, then it won't be able to find service in Europe and won't work there.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:31 PM on June 9, 2008