I am trying to buy a cell phone for my dad in Nepal. Do you guys have any experience of taking cell phones from US. Please tell me which phones do I need to buy in order for it work in Nepal. Thanks!!

you would want a *unlocked* gsm phone for it to work in nepal. ie. Phones that are not locked by gsm providers here like cingular or t-mobile. If you look for unlock codes on ebay for some phones, you might be able to unlock some of the phones locked by cingular or t-mobile. But in any case, you will need an unlocked gsm phone.
NTC has recently started CDMA system as well in nepal; if you are planning to use that system in KTM, then you would need to buy a CDMA phone with a RUIM card slot. A RUIM card looks and functions just like a SIM card, but they are not interchangeable. RUIM card compatible CDMA phones are however very hard to find, as cell phone manufacturers make them in comparitively small amounts.

Your best bet would be to buy an unlocked gsm cell phone. I have used the following two websites for gsm phone purchases before and have been really happy with the service:

www.importgsm.com
www.mobilebee.com

Cheers,
nepalikochoro

Hello nucleus,
I am going to nepal soon. I bought unlocked quad band motorola L6 for $115.00 includig shipping from Ebay. Check out Ebay there you can find best deals. Look for unlocked GSM 900/1800 mzh phones. Best go for quad band GSM unlocked. They work in Nepal.

~
Just buy any GSM quad band phone, don't worry about unlocking it !
You can unlock any phone in Nepal. Just go to shop no. 120 of Bishal Bazaar and they usually charge less than Rs. 1000.00 depending upon your phone set. In last summer I unlocked Motorola V557 phone for just Rs. 1000. In US they were asking $55 plus shipping charge.

Cheers,

Mercury, You are wrong. They cannot unlock just any phone there.
Last time I was in Nepal I had sony ericson quad band. They couldnot unlock it, instead they fried my phone. So its safe to buy unlocked phone. It doesnot cost any extra here to buy unlocked quadband gsm vs locked. Its my experience....

mercury, u got cheated man sorry...

i went to bishal bazaar and this one shop guy unlocked my fone for Rs 400

while every other shop was saying 1000

this guy did it for cheap and it was also in bishal bazzaar

Thank you all for helping me out on this, specially to Bokeshwore dude. I got the same phone as yours from ebay for 108.00 including shipping.

I got a Motorolla V170 prepaid phone from t-mobile. Its a gsm phone and works just fine in Nepal. Didn't had to unlock it either. Used the minutes that came with the phone before sending it to Nepal. Got everything for less than 90 bucks. Good luck!

While I am at it, Nepalikochoro...can you tell me if samsung a60 works in Nepal? I can get it unlocked here for 15 bucks if its gonna work with the new CDMA system in kathmandu.

bostongirl,
i googled the 'samsung a60' and found very mixed results, as there were a variety of other acronyms associated with the phone name , like SCH etc. But if you do the following, you should be able to tell if it will work in nepal or not:

check if your phone has a RUIM card slot. (take out the battery and see if there is a slot to put in a GSM like card').

if it has a verizon phone, and u see a space for a card, recheck the slot to see if there are actual electronic leads there that are used to read data to/from the card. I say this because verizon has this bad habit of removing the actual leads that are used to read/write information from the card but still keeping the slot there for the card to fit. I guess they do it so that people dont use their phones with other services.

If there is a slot for the RUIM card with leads, then i'm pretty sure that the phone can be used with ntc's CDMA system after it is unlocked. (I'm also inquiring about the actual specs required for a CDMA phone to work in nepal; as the service is very new, very few people know the details. But i'm pretty sure that you need to have a RUIM card slot).

So, if you have the slot on your phone, and you can get it unlocked, you should be able to use it in nepal.

If I come across more information that says otherwise, i'll let you know :)

cheers,
nepalikochoro.