If you travel occasionally for work or personal reasons, then you must know how exorbitant international cellular roaming charges can be. Everything ranging from our emails to social media apps and navigation systems depends on the internet. Having them running in the background can cause your data charges to skyrocket. Keeping such things in mind, we have come up with a list of how to keep your roaming charges next to none without interrupting your travel.
- Public Wi-Fi is often offered by hotels and restaurants as a part of their services. If you are planning to rent a car while traveling abroad or browse the internet for any other purpose, then it is best to do it while being in proximity of public Wi-Fi. While the quality of connection and the safety is not very reliable, it can get your basic work done. Car rental and similar navigation apps rely fully on sound internet connection and trying to get it done using your cellular net can come off as extremely costly. Since the viability of public broadband cannot always be trusted it should be kept as a backup plan. Certain mobile providers offer access to their Wi-Fi hotspots on a global scale. Otherwise, you can consider services where access to numerous hot spots is offered in exchange for a monthly fee with no upfront cost all over the world. These are more trustworthy and also offer higher speed.
- VoIP or Voice over IP application can be used for placing phone calls while being connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot. This serves as an excellent alternative to using your phone’s cellular network. Rather than incurring the exorbitant roaming charges, you can make voice calls using applications like FaceTime and Skype. However, VoIP is not recommended for receiving calls as you cannot use your normal phone number. You should also make it a point to use VoIP on a Wi-Fi hotspot as it can be incredibly expensive otherwise.
- Local SIM cards can offer a great means of enjoying call, data, and even SMS services at just a fraction of the cost compared to international roaming. You can get prepaid SIM cards at cheap rates. It is also imperative to understand whether the plan will cover your data expenses. The SIM card will offer you a new number which can help to keep in touch with family and friends. However, you will have to fill in some forms and offer identification proof before getting the sim card. It is advisable to enquire whether the same is compatible with your Apple iPhone so that you can enjoy top-quality mobile facilities on the go. Before placing the order for your next smartphone from the festive phone deals, you need to understand if it will support non-native SIM cards. Often phones have SIM locks preventing the usage of SIM cards belonging to other providers. Switching between data plans can also become very problematic if your phone doesn’t have dual sim slots.
- To keep things on the safer side you can switch off roaming completely. Most modern mobile devices come with this option which can keep your expenses under control while traveling by ensuring that you don’t connect with expensive foreign networks even accidentally.
Providers are slowly coming up with international plans which can keep your roaming charges in check while traveling to foreign destinations. You need to browse through all the details of the agreement before availing of such a service. You can also think about getting a travel modem that allows toggling between multiple data plans so that you can select the one serving you best.
