How do you avoid extortionate mobile roaming charges?
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at 09:05 by midorosan.
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BusinessTravellerKeymasterDear readers,
We are researching a feature on mobile roaming and data charges and would be interested to know how you avoid generating massive bills when you are overseas?
Have any of you tried using wifi hotspots like MiFi or Goodspeed?
What about local or international SIM cards like GeoSIM, Nowroam or RiteSIM?
Or apps like Boingo, Tru or Plingm?
If so are they any good? How convenient/easy to use are they? How much money have they saved you?
Or perhaps you use none of the above and simply log-on to free wifi wherever possible, or expense it all to your company and be done with it?
Any insights would be received with great interest
23 Nov 2012
at 17:07
MartynSinclairParticipantFirst job is now to turn voicemail off on mobile – anyone wants me, they can text or whatsapp me or i see missed number
Second job is make sure Skype is working
On arrival, slip a local sim card (from my collection) into spare phone or buy a PAYG sim
Sure you will get lots of other tips and ideas and we will all hopefully learn something new.
23 Nov 2012
at 17:22
canuckladParticipantAgree with Martyn.
First danger / hurdle to get over is switching the damn thing off.
i have no doubt that the mobile phone companies delibrately set this trap. Having received a contract BB ferom my beloved for my birthday I had left stone age at last
I knew that I needed to switch off something. Went into settings and turned my Wifi off. After an hour in DXB. Ping. O2 advise me I’ve spent £20 already.
Phone immiedately switched off. On arrival in HK, my mate shows me the hidden data roaming switch !
Preying on the stupid!
23 Nov 2012
at 18:02
DoorsToManualParticipantAs soon as you land…switch of Data Roaming. Before I learnt this I once had a bill for over £750 for a week in the USA. Skype or iChat both work well but in certain countries they are banned (Oman). The whole ‘local SIM’ card is good to save money on outgoing calls but I find telling people ALL the different numbers for different trips only confuses them. Vodaphone seem to have a good International calling package and the phone even rings with a UK ringtone to your callers, so they don’t know that you’re abroad!
24 Nov 2012
at 07:33
MartynSinclairParticipant“As soon as you land…switch of Data Roaming” – unless you are with T Mobile who sell a bundle to cover roaming charges for data whilst overseas (well covers Asia and USA) for £15 per month. Welll worth it so I get all emails and whatsapp messages with no worry about cost.
24 Nov 2012
at 09:42
LuganoPirateParticipantIt’s a good idea to turn off data roaming altogether. As soon as you land with the rush to get off the plane, get through immigration etc this simple act may pass you buy and before you know it you’ve racked up a large data roaming bill.
In my case I have 4 SIM cards. One for Switzerland, one for the UK (Virgin), a Portuguese one and a South African one. The Portuguese one has the lowest roaming tariffs in the EU and that’s the one I use when traveling in the EU apart from the UK. The credit remains valid for a year whether used or not, but continues to remain valid if a top up is made. It’s then valid again for another year.
On top of this I use a service called Operator One as well as a calling card. This way we have cut our mobile phone bills by at least 60% so it’s certainly cost effective.
24 Nov 2012
at 09:53
theworldtravellerParticipantin addition to the above, HulloMail is a great free app – you get your voicemail as a data fine when you get onto wifi abroad, so it is then free to listen to.
Be aware that o2 will charge you for the part of the call when the caller leaves your message outside Europe (think Vodafone don’t). I suppose you could divery all calls to this voicemail before you leave the UK
Truphone is another good calling app, about c.2p/min to call a landline anywhere (when your on wifi of course)
Simon
24 Nov 2012
at 10:48
MartynSinclairParticipantIs there a significant difference to Truphone and Skype.
Can blackberry owners use these types of calling facilites……?
24 Nov 2012
at 11:34
SwissExPatParticipantI have started to use “Viber” app and hence use wi fi in hotel room
24 Nov 2012
at 15:53
stevescootsParticipantdata roaming off, it takes nothing to switch back on to grab mail.
if in aplace very frequently in my case china and hK then a have a local number.
other than that its Skype, whattsapp etc
25 Nov 2012
at 08:32
katestaleyParticipantHi,
We offer company’s that travel bespoke mobile roaming tariffs that on average save our clients between 20-50% on their bills, our service is unriavalled. Contact me if you would like more details. http://www.roamingexpert.com
26 Nov 2012
at 15:22
AP_TravellerParticipant1) Switch off roaming
2) Ensure hotel has wifi
3) Use Skype for any outgoing calls26 Nov 2012
at 15:50
GordyUKParticipantI had this very issue 2 weeks ago when i flew to the states. Those lovely people at orange wanted £175 for 500mb of data. Yeah right!. I could eat through that in a day.
T-Mobile (USA) have recently launched a new unlimited sim which gives unlimited 2G data and unlimited US calls & texts (for an extra $10 it also gave unlimited internaltional texts) which i found ideal!. So basically as i roamed across america, i had all of the above for $60US
As Martyn suggested, i’d set my voicemail to “announce only” and changed the message to essentially say “you can’t leave a message but if its urgent, send a text”.
26 Nov 2012
at 16:34
VintageKrugParticipantOn hols I’m strict about turning my mobile off.
When overseas for work, I have a “business phone” which remains on, but all the sexy stuff is turned off to avoid racking up extortionate bills.
I have worked with someone who once, unbeknownst to him, racked up a €15,000 bill (for work!) when using a roaming 3G data card overseas. Oops!
Good advice is to be aware of the tariff you’re on and always contact your provider/administrator prior to lengthy trips.
27 Nov 2012
at 08:05 -
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