buying a secure phone

I called AT&T international wireless about this question and was told that AT&T has voice only in Vietnam -- no data (web access). About the 450 minutes -- you are right, they would not be useful in Vietnam. However, I was told that if I purchase a SIM card in Vietnam I would be charged the Vietnam rates for roaming. No idea what these rates would be. I feel like I'm trying to get information from another planet.

If you buy a Vietnamese SIM card in VN and you use it in VN, you just pay the local VN rates. There is no roaming.

I'm in Vietnam. International calls seem to cost between 30 and 50 US cents per min. SIM cards cost almost nothing.

If you are in VN, forget about AT&T. They are in the US, not Vietnam. It's like coordinating a home delivery from KFC in the US, when I could walk out the door and get the local KFC in 5 minutes at a fraction of the price.

When travelling in Asia - always buy a local sim card. They're very cheap (usually) and easy to buy. I take a standard tri-band gsm phone (a Motorola actually) which operates in most gsm serviced countries in the world.

Never roam on your home country gsm account - unless someone else is paying. It costs the earth.

Calls home from Asia on an Asian sim range, but are cheap. To Australia from Sri Lanka - 9c per minute. From Malaysia - 10.5 c per minute. etc. All using prepaid sim cards, no account. Thailand's also cheap. In Europe it costs more, but is still the best way to go.

Obione980 -- Sounds good. Is this Motorola gsm a secure phone? And do you have web access in Sri Lanka and Malaysia? Thanks.

Secure? What do you mean secure? You have been watching too many movies.

The GSM standard is secure against casual evesdropping. It would take highly sophisticated equipment to evesdrop on a GSM conversation without the cooperation of a phone company. It can be done, but it is not easy.

If you want to do it, you can rig up something at home which can intercept a single 1 of 8 time divided frequency slots, several hundred times a second, do that twice as the recieve and transmit signals are on a different frequency, have a decryption algorithm (to be fair, you can generate the decryption algorithm) since the signals are both digitised and encrypted anyway...

In short, if someone is putting in the effort to intercept your GSM phone conversations; the fact that they are listening in to your pizza orders is going to be the least of your worries.

Thank you to all of you for your SIM card information. The solution is becoming more clear.

I've heard that wireless is not secure at all. It sounds like GSM is not the same as wireless. I watch TV -- not so many movies!

photohappy - for most people (especially one with such little knowledge of the ins and outs of international mobile telephony) internet cafes - which are common in Vietnam - will meet all your phone and web needs.

It is easy to get a sim card for a mobile phone in Vietnam; easy to get the phone there too. The Vietnamese (in fact traders everywhere in Asia) are adept at maximising profit when dealing with the unwary.

Take Care and Good Luck.

The reason I'm exploring secure phones is because I need to access my bank account info while I'm in VN. Internet cafe computers are not secure. I am trying to gain knowledge before I go so that when I am there I can enjoy the country -- and limit the number of times I am scammed.

THERE ARE NO SECURE PHONES!!

When you read about "Secure Phones" you are reading about special hardware (or software) that both the parties on either end of the conversation have. IE if you want a truly secure conversation, you have an encoder and you have to make sure the other person has a decoder.

ALL digital phone networks have moderate level security. Casual evesdropping is not possible. You need special, difficult to aquire equipment to intercept calls or data transfers.

ALSO:

AFAIK, ther is no public over the air, phone based internet access in Vietnam anyway. You are researching something that does not exist in Vietnam. Maybe in the US you can get what you want, but it does not exist in Vietnam!

You will need to netsurf using your own laptop or a public computer while in Vietnam.