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It’s really frustrating and stressful to get home from a holiday to find that you have a massive phone bill waiting on the mat. When you go abroad and roam with your phone, it can be a great deal more costly than doing the same activities at home. If you stream movies, surf the web and spend your time sending your holiday snaps up to Facebook, you could well end up with a large bill and a nasty taste in your mouth. Passive data It’s also possible to end up with a bit of a shock even if you didn’t think you were using your mobile broadband at all. Smartphones these days look for connections in order to update applications and do standard routine tasks. You could therefore have your data costs hitting record levels without even actively doing anything online. You therefore have to ensure that you turn off your data on your phone if you don’t want a nasty surprise. In this article, we’ll take a look at what you should do and things to consider when looking to take your phone abroad. Prior to departure Before you actually travel abroad, you should consider what you want to do on your phone while you’re away. It’s unlikely that your data allowances on your contract will include any of the things that you do, any calls you make, texts you send or internet data and so there will be additional costs. Some providers however will offer you packages or add-ons that enable you to roam and get cheaper data. Go onto the online control panel for your phone or speak to the provider and see what offers they have. The packages or roaming bundles that they offer could save you a fortune. If you do go for this route, do ensure that you understand the implications of overusing your data though. It may be that after your bundle allowances have been completed, you go to a reversion rate of several pounds per GB or even a lot more. Get a special overseas SIM It’s also possible to get a special overseas SIM if your provider doesn’t offer you what you need. These can offer significantly lower prices than roaming charges offer. Alternatively, you could buy a local SIM at your destination. Of course, you’ll have a different phone number then and will not be reachable by people that you don’t give that number to. However, you’ll then be only paying local prices for calls and texts and you’ll probably end up spending far less than if you had only used your UK SIM. Of course, when you use different mobiles, you will have different mobile numbers. You do of course have to make sure that your phone will take different SIM cards. Data roaming When you go abroad, you may end up incurring large charges if you have your internet turned on. It’s normally pretty simple to switch off the internet. For example, on an Android phone, you can drop down the notification bar at the top, scroll across to “mobile data” and deactivate it. On Windows phones, iPhones and BlackBerry phones, it’s a pretty simple task too. If you are unsure how to do this, speak to your provider or look for a tutorial on YouTube or elsewhere. Voicemail It’s well worth looking into the costs of receiving phone calls and receiving voicemail messages while you’re abroad. Some providers will actually charge you every time a voicemail message is left on your phone. It may be possible to deactivate voicemail by pressing certain keys on your handset as a code, or you may have to talk to the provider and ask them to deactivate the voicemail themselves. If you do get a lot of calls and you end up getting a lot of voicemails, you could pay a lot of money. Using WiFi hotspots When you’re abroad, the best way to get online is to use WiFi hotspots in hotels, cafes, restaurants and other public places. This can provide you with free internet or at least very affordable internet. Most phones will have the ability to seek out networks and tell you when you are within range of a hotspot. When on these WiFi networks, you shouldn’t have any issues with speed or the cost. Just watch out when you are on open networks as they aren’t particularly secure and you could end up having your information reviewed by criminals in your vicinity. Using your 3G or 4G If you are using 3G or 4G certainly avoid the most data intensive activities, including putting photos up to Facebook, downloading music or watching online videos. You should also look at the size of the emails before you download them as large attachments could well end up being expensive. If you use a web-based browser, then you won’t be automatically taking the emails down to your computer as you would if you had a pop3 account on a device. Mobile operators should limit the amount of data you consume to 50€ plus VAT. However, you may inadvertently or purposefully waive the rights to this limit by buying a specific roaming bundle. Make sure that you know whether you are going to have your data cut or whether you are going to end up having additional charges when you get home. If you do have the limit on the data, you may well get a reminder at 80% and then 100% from your provider. The cost overseas The cost overseas of calls and texts and data vary depending on whether you’re in Europe or the rest of the world. Calls should cost around 20p plus VAT to UK landlines and around 6p should be charged plus VAT for every call you receive per minute. Text will likely be only cost around 7p plus VAT. Data should not be charged at more than 38p per MB plus VAT, although from July 2014 we’ll see this fall to around 17p. This is well over 10x what data tends to cost in the UK, so do be careful. The costs in the rest of the world vary massively so speak to your phone provider to find out how much you’re likely to spend if you do things elsewhere. Sam Jones has changed networks along with his family on many occasions; they have always managed to keep their existing mobile numbers.
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