Roam free? Not quite.
Roaming charges on your mobile are often a mystery for those travelling abroad. We’ve all heard that dreaded story of UK holidaymakers arriving home from a dream holiday only to be extortionately charged by their network providers for mobile data roaming.
In some cases, by checking Twitter and uploading a few holiday snaps you could find yourself with an unwelcome charge on your monthly bill. Next time you want to upload a picture of yourself on an exotic beach, or check what has been happening back home you may want to think twice.
What is Data Roaming?
It’s essentially a charge that mobile phone providers levy on customers using their phones to connect to other foreign networks. This also includes the use of mobile internet dongles and tablet devices. Prices vary between networks, but users abroad generally pay more than £1.80 (€2) per MB. To put this into perspective, a single song is approximately 10MB, which at this average rate, would cost £15 to download.
How to Avoid Costs
There's a lot of sound advice placed around the internet on how to avoid these charges on a mobile phone, including one forum post where a woman profoundly said: “You're going on holiday, leave the thing at home”. While it may not be that simple here is how you may avoid the charges.
The most obvious solution to the problem is to turn data roaming off from the handset settings. But as one particular Guardian article about so-called 'phantom roaming' wrote, people are unwittingly being charged by their networks despite following this advice, with iPhone handsets on the O2 network in particular raising the ire of customers. As a counter-measure to the issue, we suggest that you ensure your software is up-to-date and that 'push' notifications are turned off. If the 'push' service is on, the messages are sent to your iPhone when you turn it on, meaning that you could be charged even with roaming switched off. To turn the 'push' function off, go to Settings>Fetch new Data>Push>Turn off.
If you do wish to data roam abroad but want to increase control over the costs you'll incur, it's worth getting a SIM card when you arrive at your destination. That way you'll be paying local rates and if you choose pay-as-you-go, you can't be charged beyond what credit you have on your phone. Bear in mind your phone needs to be unlocked for this to work, and possibly in an effort to redeem itself, O2 allows all of its phones to be unlocked at any time upon request (providing you are a pay-monthly customer). To make the most of your data usage, beware of using Google Maps and GPS related apps which are notorious for costing a lot in charges.
For now though, for those who travel abroad regularly, it might be worth incorporating a data roaming bundle into your tariff.
This guest post was provided by Dean Wilson of Phones 4u, offering great deals on the latest smartphones including the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
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