Russian Cell Phones

It's simply ridiculous to try to get around Russia without local Russian cell phones... You arrive and your airport pickup isn't there... Your date needs to text you to say she's running late (or vice versa)... and on and on... Seriously, it's just crazy to not have a cell phone there!

You have two or three decisions to make in solving this problem. The first is whether you want to deal with Russian cell phones at all. If money is no object for you, and you already have a quad-band cell phone that has full international capabilities (AT&T typically is most reliable as far as I know, and their iPhone and most Blackberry phones are quad-band), then you can just pay the $5/minute roaming charge. If that's your situation, then you can safely ignore the rest of this page...

If cost matters at all, then you have two choices, and both are dirt cheap.

The simplest of your options regarding Russian cell phones is to simply buy a cheap phone at the airport or other nearest cell phone vendor. They're everywhere! You can probably find a simple phone for under $60 USD and a SIM chip (almost always sold separately there) for $2-$3 USD.

By the way, whether you use a phone that you buy there or just use a Russian SIM chip in your U.S. phone (more on that in a moment), all usage is pre-paid. When you buy the SIM chip you also need to buy some credits. Usually these come in the form of scratch-off cards where you scratch off the coating over the secret recharge code that you enter in the phone. Just ask the SIM chip vendor to show you how to do this, and how to check the remaining minutes at any given time.

The final option you have for meeting your cell phone communication needs while in Russia is to just use your own U.S. phone. If you have an UNLOCKED, QUAD-BAND, U.S. cell phone that operates with a SIM chip (i.e. AT&T and T-Mobile), you are in luck. In this case you can usually buy the local SIM chip for $2-$3 USD from a vendor right there in the airport, pop it into your phone, and you have a local, pre-paid cell phone (most new SIM chips come with some credit already on them, but you should probably buy an additional $10 USD of credit from the same vendor). Cell phone vendors at airports typically speak at least a little English and can help you set up your SIM card and credits.

If you have a quad-band cell phone from AT&T or T-Mobile, it already works on a SIM chip, but is probably NOT "unlocked". And this can be a problem because to temporarily convert U.S. cell phones into Russian cell phones, they MUST be unlocked.

There is a little something about the inner workings of U.S. cell phone companies that will be helpful for you to know when it comes to getting your phone unlocked.... Except in special cases, almost any time you buy a phone from a U.S. cell carrier, they subsidize much of the phone's cost. For instance, my Blackberry Curve was completely free after my upgrade allowance combined with a mail-in rebate. But go Google "Unlocked Blackberry Curve 8300" and you'll see that these phones typically run over $300 even now - years after the phone has been on the market.

Since they know they have me on a contract for two full years, they're willing to pay the full cost of the phone. BUT they aren't always eager to let you use it on another network, which is what unlocking does!

So how then do you get it unlocked? If you have had the phone for more than a year or two, your cell company will probably unlock it for you free. You just call them and ask if your phone qualifies for unlocking, and if it does, they'll walk you through it right over the phone. I've unlocked two phones that way now and it has worked like a charm.

If your phone doesn't qualify for unlocking it is still possible to unlock it. There are many services that provide unlocking services, such as Cell Unlockers. I have never used this kind of service, so I really do not know how well they work from personal experience, but if I were in this situation where I couldn't get my phone unlocked directly from the cell carrier I would not hesitate to try.

You can investigate other options yourself by just doing an internet search for "Unlock cell phone" and you will get more options than you could ever need.