Save Money on Phone Calls When Traveling

GSM cell phone services (ie. AT&T and T-Mobile) are great because they use the same standard many European carriers use. This means you can take your cell phone with you abroad and you can make calls -- although you will pay for them through the nose. I was reading recently about people traveling abroad with iPhones running on the AT&T network who received emails and other data transfer and had obscene bills (see here).

When I was traveling abroad last year I went old school and purchased a phone card to use at a pay phone. This year I decided to do some research, and although its not the cheapest option in the world and regular old phone cards might still be more effective another option to look into is prepaid sims like those offered by MAXroam. These companies allow you to buy a sim chip (those of you with AT&T or T-Mobile should be familiar with sims) that you can pop into your cell phone and will give you a local number wherever you are traveling. That means you can use your phone more easily abroad and get WAY cheaper calling and roaming rates.

Unfortunately these services aren't available to many people in the US for two reasons. First, most of us have a carrier other than AT&T or T-Mobile -- thus, our phones don't run on a GSM based network. Second, to use a prepaid sim service you need to own an unlocked phone. U.S. carriers sell almost exclusively phones locked or tethered to their cell phone service. To unlock your handset you need to either convince your carrier to do so or purchase/find an unlock code online. If you place a different carrier's sim in your locked phone you won't be able to make outgoing calls.

Lets get down to the dollars and cents... how much can you save? A roaming call when I was traveling abroad in Spain ran over $2 USD / min. Based on the MAXRoam website the cost of a sim is $29.99 (Euros) and that includes a 5 euro calling credit. Incoming calls run just .25 euro / min and outgoing calls .38 euro / min. That savings is substantial if you plan on placing a fair number of calls while traveling - or if you just want to have a way for people to contact you while traveling.

If you have used a similar sim service let us know which one and what kind of rates you paid.

Image: KB35 @ Flickr