In visiting that country you will need to be in touch with your friends in Thailand and abroad, not to mention your family back home. You need your mobile phone with you. If you take the phone that you use at home, it should be on roaming plan when you are in Thailand, where costs would mount up as and when you call locally or abroad. The costs of those calls will be definitely out of proportion, more-so since you are on roaming. There is a way where you can save 80% on your calls. A pre-paid SIM card for Thailand is all you need to save your cost. You will get a local number with this pre-paid SIM card and all your incoming calls are free, no matter where they generate from. You will pay for your calls that you make like the locals do, and you will not need to enter any contact in buying this pre-paid SIM card for Thailand. You will not receive any bills at the end of the month and you will not be on roaming, saving substantially on that front. With pre-paid SIM cards, you do not have any worries regarding any bills what-so-ever. Call locally and you will pay less than 3 cents a minute on your calls and calling your family back home is as cheap as approximately 56 cents a minute. So you can realise the savings, vis-à-vis to your calls while you are on roaming. Planetomni offers you the best deal in such pre-paid SIM cards. Visit www.planetomni.com/FAQ_sim.shtml for more information.

When you buy the pre-paid SIM card for Thailand, you shall not only receive the SIM card, but also a a talk time credit along with it, so that you need not worry about making calls immediately on reaching Bangkok. When-ever the credit limit is exhausted, or you would want more credit to be added to your talk time, you can easily purchase re-charge vouchers or coupons from almost any shop in Thailand. These vouchers or coupons come in different denomination and you may choose as to how much call time credits that you would want to buy.

Most the part of the world operates on Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), except North America and Canada, where mobile telephony is used in limited GSM frequencies. It is most likely that the GSM phone that you have may not work in Thailand.

The GSM network has four frequency bands of operation and these are - 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz. In effect, GSM features four frequency bands. The GSM frequency band used in North America and Canada are 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands and this sets apart the two countries from the rest of the world. Thailand works on 900MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900MHz bands. Though one of the bandwidth does match with the North American and Canadian mobile network operation, it is always better to verify this from www.planetomni.com/ before you leave home. Apparently it is always better to carry such a handset which will operate on all the frequency band of that country. For this reason, mobile handsets are available in three different categories - Dual Band, Tri-band and Quad Band. The dual band covers frequency bands of 800 MHz and 1900 MHz, the tri-band work on 800 MHz, 900 MHz and 1800 MHz and the quad band has an operational bandwidth of all the four bands. If you are a frequent traveler, it is always safe to carry a quad band handset with you, with no worries in your mind about its operation in the different countries that you visit. Call Planetomni to find out about renting such a mobile or if you like, buying one of those.

While on the subject of mobile handset, you must be sure that the handset you buy or rent should be SIM unlocked. When you enter into a plan with a service provider, the mobile phone might come to you free along with the SIM card. In that contract you have agreed to be with the service provider for a certain period of time. During this period, your mobile will not work with any other SIM card except the one which came along with your handset. This mobile is SIM Locked and will not work with any other SIM card. At the end of the contract period, the service provider will help you to SIM unlock the phone after which you can use that phone with any SIM card of your choice. Therefore, it is advisable for you to make sure that the phone that you are taking to Thailand is SIM unlocked, so that you can use your pre-paid SIM card for Thailand in that phone Planetomni can help you with all the matters, regarding purchase of a SIM card for Thailand to renting or buying an appropriate GSM handset which is SIM unlocked. Visit www.planetomni.com/FAQ_gsm.shtml for more details on the subject.

Cell phone use overseas. In 99% of the world the local cellular service standard is called GSM. We use this in the states as well. When combined with a SIM CARD (which usually goes under the battery of the phone) the phone is able to communicate and the SIM CARD also holds the telephone number and memory for pre-paid credit. Rates can be extremely low using this system. For example in 99% of all SIM CARDS incoming calls are free and calls to the states can cost a trifle. Such as, from the UK to the USA 7 cents/minute, from Israel 22 cents, from Australia 27 cents. Yes, USA Dollar cents! There are today even prepaid service providers in the USA offering rates of 10 cents per minute to call anywhere in the US to any type of phone. No contracts, no credit card checks, no bills. Pre-paid always means no minimums no contracts, no obligations. You only pay for the calls made. You'll need an unlocked GSM tri-band or quadband UNLOCKED phone. You can buy factory unlocked phones and sim cards for more than 170 or the 193 countries on earth from http://www.planetomni.com Tel. # 800-514-2984