Prepaid phones in San Francisco 

Hiya, thanks for coming back again to mygola. I love the fact that you are using us so much 

I had to go through a lot of forums to figure out how it could work best for you. One of the main things is AT&T is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the United States. Luckily they do offer a variety of prepaid options but is important that you do choose the right one or get stuck with horrible roaming charges!

This link from Answerbag explains the prepaid options available for the IPhone which includes Pay As You Go, data plans and the like.

I also found you another link which details costs for the various plans and how to activate prepaid on your IPhone.

The other piece of advice is unlock your network. If you wish to try this out, check this link here on how to use T-Mobile (who is the other big provider) on your phone in the US.

Other options:

• You may consider buying a pre-paid phone when you get to the US. No issues with network standards, cross-operability, etc. They are cheap, and easy to find. Radio Shack ( they have a chain of electronics stories across the country) has a wide variety of phones on offer. Note: You pay for all calls, incoming and outgoing. The options I found are:
  • T-Mobile - T-Mobile's To Go plans offer great coverage in T-Mobile friendly areas, a wide array of basic phone features and competitive pricing make this a great option.
  • Virgin Mobile - Virgin Mobile offers one of the most feature rich plans available
  • Platinum Tel Prepaid - Great prepaid plans at great prices.

• Cellular Abroad offers you prepaid SIM cards for unlocked phones and all this without a contract too.

• Max Roam - Again an unlocked GSM phone and the Max Roam SIM card should to the trick. Check this review of Max Roam here

• Check out MrSimCard.com for more options for your iPhone as well.

Do read here for Mike's experiences of using his iPhone in the US. Note: This is with particular reference to Australia but am presuming you can use this as well.

I think I would RECOMMEND you buying a prepaid phone in the US itself. I reckon this will be a far cheaper and viable option in terms of the features that will get provided to you. If you want help in deciding which provider will work best for you, let me know and I will suggest more options based on what kind of plan you would want.

Cheers

Kirti