Mobile Roaming made simple

What is Roaming?

Mobile roaming is using your mobile phone or other mobile device such as a tablet or ipad outside the country your account was setup in. Usually this occurs while on holidays or business and can be a very expensive exercise for the unaware. When roaming you may be charged to recieve calls and texts as well as send or make them along with any data you consume for any application including those often free such as facebook or even google maps. Many travellers have returned from even short trips with many thousands of dollars of calls and data on their bills.

More Detail

In 2009/10 the Telecommunications Ombudsman received an 80% increase in complaints relating to roaming bill shock for data and calls, an 80 percent increase in complaints from previous years.

The TIO has identified roaming call costs as the fastest growing problem area for mobile phone users in response to this Phonechoice has compared the roaming call costs from a selection of countries from the top 3 major carriers and specialist roaming SIM companies.

There are a number of options available to roaming mobile phone users to lower the costs each with advantages and disadvantages Phonechoice examined the options to find the cheapest and best option for travelers.

The specialized roaming SIM's usually operate as a call back service where you dial a number and key in the number you wish to dial hang up and are called back a few seconds later once you get used to it you find its no great inconvenience at all especially considering the savings.

Option 1 - Purchase a prepaid SIM in the country you are visiting

Smart travelers have for years been purchasing a Prepaid SIM card when they arrive in the destination country to keep their call costs down, these are freely available from convenience type stores world wide and usually just require a credit card to activate them

• Cheap local calls in the country you are visiting
• Local number to give people to call you on
• No cost to receive calls

• Must have an unlocked handset for the SIM to operate
• IDD call for Australian based callers to call you
• Expensive calls back to Australia (depending on call plan)

Option 2 Roam using your carrier

Many travelers just activate roaming with their service provider and away they go unaware of the real cost of their calls until they return and receive a nasty surprise with their bill. Most consumers are not aware of the incoming call cost and happily take inbound calls from friends and associates at home thinking that like calls received at home there is no cost when in fact there can be a considerable cost.

• Don't have to do anything
• Works if your handset is locked to your carrier
• Same number so you receive calls from Australia with no changes

• Expensive calls back to Australia
• Pay to receive calls from Australia
• Billing is often delayed with call charges appearing across bills sometimes 60 days later

Option 3 Purchase a Special SIM for travelling

A number of Australian companies offer a roaming SIM service that allows you to purchase a special SIM card for your handset that provides very cheap calls compared to the major carriers.Iif you are travelling to multiple countries these are much more convenient than purchasing SIM�s for each country you are visiting. You need to check the rates because in some cases your normal provider can be cheaper, gotalk Global is the cheapest SIM by far in the comparison below

• Cheaper call rates
• In some cases a local Australian call number is provided

• Must have an unlocked handset for the SIM to operate

Conclusion

Roaming costs can be an unwelcome and significant cost of travelling for both the business and consumer, with a little planning these costs can be greatly reduced with little inconvenience.

Comparing costs below gotalk Global is in most cases the best choice for travelling being considerably cheaper than the major 3 service providers and competitive special travelling SIM products .