Cellphone bought in US .. Work here ?

icey · #1 02-16-2005, 08:31 PM

I have bought a cell phone in the US which I will give as a gift to a Dominican to use in the South Coast area.

I have been told that the phone must operate in the 1800/1900 band. The phone I've purchased has this capability. Unfortunately, down in the Dominican Republic , cell phone plans are not the norm from what I can tell.

What must a person do to get this phone to operate ? Do they go to say Verizon, and get a phone number ? Does the phone need a different internal chip ?

Any help would be appreciated..

sweetdbt · #2 02-16-2005, 08:56 PM

If the phone is GSM (ie Cingulair or T-Mobile) you can get a SIM card at Orange. If it is CDMA (Sprint, Verizon), it needs to be unlocked and activated with Verizon. I'm not sure if the Verizon store will do this, but there are lots of mom and pop shops that will.

Bob K · #3 02-17-2005, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetdbt

If the phone is GSM (ie Cingulair or T-Mobile) you can get a SIM card at Orange. If it is CDMA (Sprint, Verizon), it needs to be unlocked and activated with Verizon. I'm not sure if the Verizon store will do this, but there are lots of mom and pop shops that will.

Does this mean that we can bring our Verizon phones with us. We have a drawer full of them. When we travel to the DR our US verizon phones will not allow calls to or from the DR. This can be changed when there?

Bob K

danduva · #4 02-20-2005, 02:49 PM

I have brought about 20 used sell phones to the DR and have no problem activating them, whether they were locked or not, in the Mom and Pop phone stores. Usually it is free although you have to buy a 250 peso phone card. Mostly I have done Verizon.
Dan

wight-boy · #5 02-20-2005, 06:01 PM

An activation with Orange from an authorised dealer is 350 pesos including calling credit for 100 pesos, this is for use with prepay cards. The store will need to take a copy of your passport or Dominican Cedula. 1900mhz is the frequency in the DR (as is the US I believe) and there are plenty of places phones can be sent for unlocking if it is network blocked. Normally the Orange store will have a place it uses also. Check inside the telephone to see if it has space for a sim card,if yes 99% of the time this means it is a GSM phone for use on Orange. If there is no space then it is a CDMA phone foruse with a company like Verizon.