US Phone in India

[saleem145]

Hello,

I am wondering if I buy a cell phone in the US would it work in India (I will put in an Indian SIM card)?? Would a US CDMA work in India if I plug in a SIM Card from a CDMA carrier in India?? Likewise for GSM?? If not why not??

Saleem

[petrib]

CDMA phones do not generally use SIM cards at all, as far as I know. There are some special CDMA models that can take a SIM card for a GSM phone (I've rented one such in South Korea; crappy phone and it didn't really work well).

A GSM phone from the US should work, if it is a quad-band phone (one that also supports 900MHz and 1800MHz frequency bands). A tri-band phone will also work, but generally they only support 1800MHz (in addition to the North American 850MHz, 1900MHz, which are not used elsewhere in the world).

[saleem145]

Thanks for your response. So the 5140i would work in both India and US since it is triband (EGSM 900, GSM 1800, and 1900 )??

Also CDMA phones which have no SIM card would work in US thru carriers that support CDMA and in India thru carriers that support CDMA?? Or is there a frequency band issue?? What do I need to look for??

Saleem

[petrib]

The 5140i will work in India in those regions/areas where there is 900MHz or 1800MHz coverage. In the US it will work in those regions where there is 1900MHz coverage, but not in regions where there is only 850MHz coverage.

An US CDMA phone will not work at all in India, I suspect. A local CDMA phone in India might be able to take a GSM SIM card, if there is similar service like in South Korea.