1. I was able to buy Samsung’s Nexus GT i9250, which is the international unlocked version, here in Germany. I have yet to try it in the US, but my expectation is that it will be able to use a T-Mobile SIM card there, and AT&T SIM too, so I won’t be locked in to one if one of those entities jacks up the price suddenly.

2. Here in Germany I bought a blau.de SIM card. I chose it because they have a protection of max 39 Euro (that’s like $52) per month no matter what you accidentally do (like leave the phone on soaking up data). Well, there may be some exceptions, like roaming, but I haven’t yet translated every little word on the web site! Anyway, even if you max out, they let you keep using the web but they slow down the data speed drastically. And no long-term commitment required on my part. Very key.

Anyway, the blau web site and printed instructions seem nicely straightforward, even for me, having to translate it to English using Google Translate (the blau.de site is in German) as I work through the activation and sign-up process online (gotta give them my name and stuff), which is something one must do after one buys the SIM card. SIM cards are available at retail outlets (or online but that’s too much of an adventure for X Pat Trailing Spouse). The instructions indicated that I was supposed to do this signing up before putting the SIM card in my phone. And so that’s what I did.

I have been using the phone cautiously for a few days and I can log into blau.de and easily see what I did and what it cost me, with only minor delays (90 minutes or a day, for example, depending on what I am concerned about). Sorry if this sounds like a commercial; I can only “report” on the SIM card I tried!

Sorry, any traveling-Americans-on-a-busy-schedule-who-have-always-used-Verizon-and-barely-know-what-SIM-cards-are, I do not know if a German store retailer would do the sign-up-and-then-insert-SIM process for you on the spot, or if you would have to make sure you could make time to sign up online at your hotel that night on someone’s real computer. In my case I had the time to do it at home using my own computer. This process can also be done by phone but with my halting German that was unthinkable.

Now that I think on it, this is kind of an important issue for me, too: My blau.de SIM card is good in Germany. When I am in another country there are roaming possibilities but my plan is to buy a different SIM card when I go to another country from another provider in that country. So I am hoping that in Europe the retailers can walk me through sign-ups in their languages . . . I will just have to wait and see.

Once signed up, with a little time for blau.de to process my online input, I was able to get Internet service right away. So, so far I can say that I like blau.de as a SIM card provider in Germany. No surprises, no games. So far anyway! The Nexus screen is crisp and clear and easy to read and data came in fast. Yay. Of course I don’t know what I’m doing yet; I have never used Android. Gulp.

3.Now I will veer slightly away from the main topic of this blog about international calling to share the one little adventure I had in beginning to use the phone. At first I thought I had made a huge mistake buying the expensive Nexus, but it was OK in the end. This might happen to someone in the US or in Germany, I imagine.

I wanted to get onto my own home WiFi wireless network so I would not chew up data through my service provider as I got acquainted with my phone.

At first I could not get on my own home wireless network; I figured out the steps, which are quite simple, but my phone just kept telling me “authenticating.” I scoured the web to see who shared this problem and what they did about it. I am not the only one who has had difficulty getting the Nexus to use a home wireless router– even if the house’s personal computers were hooked up with no problems. (Knowing I was not alone did not make me feel better. Nope, not one bit).

This is of course when I discovered that the Samsung Nexus manual–which is available online and does NOT physically accompany the phone (how eco-friendly, but different) –is pretty bare bones . . .

The solutions that helpful people writing in Internet forums had found generally involved going into their own home routers and changing some settings. This is not something I do every day, so figuring out exactly what I should do consumed some mental time and energy. I did not want to lose the existing connectivity of my home PCs so I went cautiously.

But fortunately, X Pat Trailing Spouse thinks it’s fun to read a router manual in German. (I have a German router). Those endorphin rushes when the gibberish suddenly makes perfect sense! And fortunately the manual had lots of screen shots.

I had to do a lot of web searching (thanks, all you people who DO write up stuff on the web in English) to figure out which setting to try to change first.

In my case I had to turn off WPS (WiFi Protected Setup) in my router. WPS, I learned, is the very thing that is supposed to make wireless set-up easy by letting people push buttons or use PINS, somehow. In my case it just seemed to get in the way.

Disabling WPS does not undo my existing router security, I learned. But don’t take my word for it! I am just parroting someone else, to whom I am very grateful (forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t332383.html ). (I was afraid at first to turn off anything of three letters that started with W).

Now I am up and running! I hope that my little story of my particular case is helpful to anyone else about to face a similar situation.

Anyway, They refused to reactivate my account so I had to buy another SIM card and then I tried to activate a new number. after paying $12 for the SIM and $40 for the plan, they activated a new number but gave me an out of area phone number. I argued with them that the number was not the local number in my county let alone the town I live in. No help. They said thats what their system gave and thats what I will have to live with. They refused to refund my money and do anything about it.

Stay away else you will regret.