[bobmarks]

Hi,

IF I get my VZW Tour unlocked, go to Europe and put in a local SIM card, will I still be getting my email, BBMs, and text messages? Are they tied to the SIM card/phone number, or to the phone itself?

Also, does anyone have any experience traveling to Alaska with a VZW BB? I'll be an Anchorage for a week, and while I understand it's part of the US, is there sufficient VZW coverage? Any surcharges?

Thanks for your help and advice.

[mobilesat69]

i go to alaska about three times a year and their verizon coverage is just fine. they just dont have much of a data network up there. consider yourself lucky if all your data features with a bb work.

[FF22]

I can't answer whether you get data with a local Europe Sim card. I read conflicting reports of whether they are available.

I (I need to make this a boilerplate text) was in Germany, Italy and Austria in June, predominantly in Italy and used my 8830 with the Verizon sim card. I signed up for their Global Plan. Calls are still not cheap, at $0.99/minute both in/out and also to/from the US. Data is UNlimited. If locals call you, they call your US number so international. If you get a sim card over there, you get a new number and calls to/from the US are International, I believe (not sure).

All numbers are rounded. The Global costs $70/month. It replaces your $30 bis plan, so extra cost is actually $40. It is prorated so two weeks would be $35 and then bis would be $15.

We did not use the calling much but a ton of data as 3 of us retrieved our email (my 8830 for all of this), read the web, looked up stuff and weather. I saved approx $300 in the 3 weeks.

I probably sound like a shill for Verizon's plan but it was simple and just part of the cost of being in Europe for 3 weeks.

[cenloe]

You should be fine in Alaska as long as you are in the "big" cities or on the major highways. Like mobilesat69 said, don't count on data being available. Officially, Verizon does not provide service in AK, they do have roaming agreements with the local CDMA carriers though.

[spectraphysics]

I just got back from the UK and purchased an Orange SIM card for making calls back to the US (6p/min to US, 20p/min to UK numbers). The SIM worked fine, but I did not have the phone registered on the SIM with Blackberry so my data didn't work (I used the Vodaphone SIM that came with my Tour for that). I did the card switching when I needed to make calls.

However, Orange told me that they could have activated my phone with Blackberry so that data would have worked. Cost for that was 5 GBP/month. It would have been a deal but I was only in the UK for a week. Since I had my Vodaphone SIM activated with Blackberry, I didn't know what impact registering the Orange SIM as well. Since I was paying for data with the Vodaphone SIM via VZW, I didn't want to pay twice. Next time, I might consider not going the VZW Global Access route and just using the Orange SIM for data.

So long as your Tour is unlocked, any SIM will work for voice though.

[pixiefied]

You will get everything in alaska.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[bobmarks]

Thanks for the helpful advice. Verizon Global unlocked my Tour, which apparently only requires that you have maintained 60 days of service with them. I spoke to two representatives there. One said I will get data and email with a new foreign SIM card, and the other rep said that I will not. Oh well...