Will a basic cell phone from Europe accept a South American sim card?

[mervifwdc]

Hi,

both mine and my wife's iphones are on the way out. instead of getting new ones, I'm thinking to get some basic nokias or similar, as we would like to swap in local sim cards from each country we visit (uruguay, argentina, chile, bolivia, peru....) so that we can do cheap calls locally and to each other.

we use skype to call home to Ireland, so that's no big deal.

if european phones wont work so well with south american sim cards, are they easy / cheap to buy in uruguay (Our first country).

Thanks!
Merv.

[UK4X4]

You will need to buy an UNLOCKED GSM phone

thats not jail broken- unlocked as in not tied to a network provider

tri band or quad band GSM

then use where ever with no problems

[DreamingOfExpeditions]

Don't know the local codes, but some countries (Italy from personal experience, my company forgot to turn my oversees package on), do not make it easy to get local disposable and pay as you go cards. To much nefarious activity to go with those anonymous phones (drug dealers).

Now the upside, I bring my uncle US sim card phones when he breaks his, as they are way cheaper here and they work fine in Italy.