Roaming and your phone bill

Cell phones have become such a major part of our existence and for most people, our telephone bills have become a large monthly expense. Have you ever returned from abroad to find a shocking mobile phone bill awaiting you?  When you use your phone abroad, as soon as it is detected on a roaming partner’s network, expensive international roaming rates and charges kick in.

Roaming costs have tarnished the wonderful memories of many vacations, but fortunately there are practical steps you can take to stay in control of your phone bill and still stay connected with family, friends and business associates.

Continue after the cut...

Know before you go. Do you know what you are being charged for? This should be a fairly obvious but it is amazing how many people take their phones abroad and do not have a clue what they are being charged to use it.

Before you leave your home country, ask your service provider about roaming fees for both phone and data use so that you have at least a rough idea of the cost of using your phone abroad. When traveling internationally, you are typically charged both for receiving as well as making calls, for sending text messages, for accessing e-mails, voice mail messages, for surfing the web and downloading videos, music, and images in the countries you are visiting.

Do you need to be able to make and receive calls? Do you really need real time internet access or other data services on your device? Do you really need to check your e-mails on the go? This will determine how you should use your device on your trip.

There should be no charge for receiving text messages whilst you are abroad but there are significant charges to receive calls, so if you are having regular conversations with people in Nigeria, try to encourage them to make your interaction text-based.

By using a web-based phone service you can keep your bills down. Service providers such as Google and Skype, offer free calling at relatively low rates on international calls. If you are travelling with your laptop, you can use Skype at any wireless hotspot or from your hotel room.

Be careful of your voice mail. Even if you are careful with your mobile phone use whilst you are abroad, and avoid making unnecessary calls, did you know that if someone leaves a message on your voicemail, you are billed as though you were receiving an international call? Even worse, you will be charged again to listen to those messages.

Buying a local SIM card can be the cheapest way of using your mobile abroad particularly if you plan to spend an extended period of time in the same country. Replace the SIM card in your phone or buy a cheap GSM-enabled phone as an alternate phone. This will allow you to continue to receive calls from family and business associates who must reach you and will almost certainly be cheaper to make calls within that country although this may not necessarily mean it will be cheaper to make an international call.

Some people opt to switch off and leave off their smartphones if it isn’t being used all the time; they only switch it on to check emails and text messages periodically.

The new-generation smartphones such as the iPhone and the Blackberry have become extremely popular devices – providing access to your emails and the internet, a world of shopping and social networking applications. We thus unwittingly leave ourselves open to international roaming charges on our smartphones as soon as we switch them on. The continuous activity utilises data bandwidth and this leads to constant charging and huge bills in accidental roaming fees. If you do not need data services on your trip and can resist the temptation to sneak a quick e-mail check on your smartphone, then switch off the data service when you are roaming.

The good thing about smartphones is there are options and you can choose which services to cut off. After disabling data services, you will still be able to make and receive calls and text messages. In addition, you can turn this feature on and off at will so you can still check your emails periodically.

If you will have access to Wi-Fi hotspots, business centres or internet cafes at your destination you won’t have to use your mobile phone all the time and can use your laptop. However, be cautious and only connect to Wi-Fi hotspots that you feel you can trust.  Use ‘free’ hotspots with extreme caution; they may be convenient but are not always safe as there is always a danger of hacking or snooping. To at least reduce your vulnerability, use strong passwords and install some security software. Wi-Fi access, whilst it may not be free, is usually much cheaper than paying data roaming costs.

As a mobile phone user, you must take some responsibility for staying informed of the cost of services that you subscribe to. It is also important that mobile phone operators are more proactive about providing cost information for users rather than for subscribers having to stumble on information after a bad experience. Much of the information on the service provider websites is confusing and not that easy to understand.

Clearly what subscribers want, need and deserve is more transparency, so that they can confidently use data services when roaming, as well as some sort of control mechanism to ensure they do not incur excessively large bills when roaming and without even realising it.

- ’Nimi Akinkugbe (nakinkugbe@punchng.com) 

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