Using your mobile phone abroad: What you need to know

Everything you need to know before taking your mobile phone abroad – the costs, the pitfalls and the loopholes.

photo: muha…

So you’re jetting off to another country? Before you leave Blighty to go and enjoy the sights, sun and sand elsewhere, it’s important to make sure that your phone works abroad and that you won’t get charged a fortune for using it!
Here are my top 10 tips for using your phone abroad.
1. Check your phone works abroad and roaming is enabled by your operator

Most modern mobile phones should work across the whole world.

• Dual-band phones work in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa. In these areas, we normally use the GSM900 and GSM1800 technologies. If you’ve got a phone which is at least dual-band, it should work fine across these regions.
• A tri-band phone is required for roaming in the Americas. In the Americas, typically GSM850 and GSM1900 are used. A tri-band phone will support GSM1900 in addition to the two European technologies.
• Quad-band phones will work in every country which uses GSM.

A few months ago we published an article discussing the technologies used by mobile phone networks. Although the article is mainly aimed at visitors to the UK, it may still be of interest to UK travellers going abroad.
In order to use your phone abroad, you may have to ask your operator to enable your phone for roaming first. Check with them first if you’re unsure.

2. Check how much it costs

This should be a fairly obvious thing to do but it’s amazing how many people don’t actually do this! Whilst abroad, you are typically charged when you receive calls as well as when you make them. Charges are typically in the region of £1.50/minute, 50p per text and £6/MB if outside of the EU. Inside the EU, prices are lower as they are capped by the EU. Check the websites of your mobile operator first:

• O2
• Orange
• Three
• T-Mobile
• Vodafone

photo: kimdokhac

3. Smartphone Users – Beware. Turn off Data Roaming!

Unfortunately, “data roaming bill shock” has been a growing problem over the last year. The vast majority of people aren’t aware of the costs of data roaming and just how much data their smartphones use. There have been some high profile cases reported in the press and I’m still not sure if the networks have done enough to educate users.
OFCOM recently forced the mobile operators to introduce a £41 cut-off limit for roaming data charges in the EU. However, this doesn’t apply to customers travelling beyond the EU.
A typical smartphone uses around 200MB of data per month. Typically the networks charge between £4/MB and £8/MB for data roaming. So if you spend a month abroad and use your phone as normal with data roaming on… that’s a bill for about £1,000.
The problem is that smartphones tend to be very data-intensive. Downloading a typical MP3 file would cost you about £20. Watching one hour of television would cost about £2,500.
I cannot stress this enough: if you use a smartphone disable the data roaming feature.

• 
  iPhone: Go to Settings > General > Network > Data Roaming and select Off. For an extra precaution, you can disable all internet connectivity in iOS4.
• Android: Go to Settings > Wireless & networks > Mobile networks and uncheck ‘Data roaming’. Android also offers the option to disable internet connectivity altogether.

4. Don’t call; be called!
Get the other person to call you.
Your friend who is still in the UK will stay pay the normal rate to call your mobile (you still have a UK number whilst abroad; it doesn’t matter that you’re abroad). So if your friend has bundled minutes as part of their tariff, they should be able to use their minutes to call you whilst you’re abroad.
The only difference is that whilst you are abroad, you will be charged to receive the call. However, for you this normally costs a lot less than making a call (typically it costs half as much to receive a call than to make a call). Select the right tariff and you won’t be charged to receive calls – then you could have totally free calls whilst abroad.
A good way to organise this is to make a “prank call” to your friend. Before you go abroad, agree with your friend that they will neither accept or reject your call when you call them (this is important: if they do either, you’ll get charged). When you call them from abroad, let it ring twice and then hang up. You won’t get charged as your call never got connected: but your friend will know that you want a chat and can call you back.
5. Get the Vodafone Passport Tariff
If you’re travelling abroad to Europe, Australia or New Zealand (particularly to the latter two as they offer the most substantial savings), you may find it good value to grab yourself a free Vodafone SIM card with “Vodafone Passport”. It will allow you to stay in touch with family and friends at home at a fraction of the price by providing discounted calls and texts.
See our guide to using Vodafone Passport. You’ll need to enable Passport first before you can use it.

photo: Joshua Davis (jdavis.info)

6. Turn off Voicemail
Turn off voicemail on your phone. Every time someone leaves a message on your voicemail, you’ll be billed for receiving an international call. You’ll be charged for an international call if you pick up your voicemail too. Best thing to do… turn off voicemail and you won’t have the temptation.
7. Receiving texts is free

It’s always free to receive a text message wherever you are in the world. This is because you have no control over whether someone sends you a text and unlike with calls you cannot reject the delivery of a texts (hence you cannot fairly be charged to receive one). You can take advantage of this to use your phone as a pager abroad for free but you’ll have to resist the temptation of calling/texting back!


8. Buy a SIM card whilst abroad
If you’re going for more than a couple of days, it might be cheaper to buy a pay as you go SIM card in your destination country.
It will almost certainly be cheaper to make calls within that country; although not necessarily cheaper to make a call back home. Double check the tariffs.
You’ll also need to ensure your handset is unlocked.

photo: WTL photos

9. Use VoIP/instant messaging (e.g. Skype) over Wi-Fi
If you’ve got a smartphone, look for VoIP (Voice over IP) or IM (Instant Messaging) application such as MSN Messenger, Skype or Google Talk. If you can find a free wi-fi hotspot, you’ll can use these to get in touch with the folks back home and it won’t cost you a penny. Don’t use it over the mobile network though; you’ll get hit with the huge data roaming costs.
10. Turn your phone off!
Finally, remember that you’re on holiday and that you’re there to enjoy yourself! So turn your phone off, relax and enjoy the wonderful weather and scenery… The last thing you want is to be disturbed by a business call!