With the summer break in full swing, many people are taking time off. Some lucky people even get to travel abroad, taking with them their handy-dandy smartphones. I mean, what use is it going to the Eiffel Tower if you can’t twitter about it? One of the great things about smartphones is that many of them do work in foreign countries, roaming on other carriers’ networks. However, just because your phone works just as it does at home doesn't mean you’ll be charged like you are at home. Read on to learn how you can protect yourself from bill shock.

One of the first things you should do after you finalize you travel plans is call your service provider. Usually, customer service representatives can provide you with information about international roaming, including voice, text, and data. Depending upon what services you need, you might be able to add an international plan to reduce your overall expenses.

However, in addition to asking the customer service representatives, confirm this information with your carrier’s web site. And this isn’t a mere suggestion. We have run across some instances where customer service reps may not have provided complete and accurate information about international roaming. This is why it is vitally important for you to check, double check, and triple check the calling, text, and data rates in the specific country where you are going to travel. Thankfully, this is an easy task with the wealth of information carriers provide on their websites. For example, this Verizon site lets you select a country to see the rates and coverage area.

In order for your phone to “roam,” your service provider has an agreement with international carriers to provide your phone with service. The rates for this privilege can be expensive, or VERY expensive, depending on where your travels take you. For example, the international data rate for T-Mobile is $10 a megabyte in Canada and $15 in all other foreign countries. To put this in perspective, e-mailing a dozen pictures, with 4 pictures in a megabyte, would set you back $45 in France. Ouch!

Even further, if you have data broadband card that lets you surf the Internet on your computer, you need to make sure you are doubly and triply sure what your plan covers. We recently received a complaint from a consumer who had a Verizon Global Access plan for his data broadband card. The Global Access plan provides 100 MB of data transfer per month for international travel. But (and this is a big one) not all countries qualify for the 100 MB of data transfer! This means that on top of the monthly charge you pay for the 100 MB, you need to pay an additional charge for all your data transfer needs. And, as you can probably guess, these charges don’t come cheap.

 A very simple way to avoid international roaming charges is to not use your phone at all! This doesn’t mean that you’ll be stranded with no way to talk or text. It simply means that you can use other methods. One of the easiest ways is to purchase a prepaid cell phone from the country you will be in. Another way is to purchase a local SIM card that you can swap with your US SIM card (assuming you have a GSM phone, of course). International calling cards can be cheap, but often lead to a world of hurt on their own.

The bottom line is that you need to be 100% what the rates will be when you travel abroad. This is the best way to prevent bill shock and returning home to a $2,000 phone bill.

 Questions about international data roaming? Want to give the UCAN staff a free trip abroad so we can do extensive testing of international data roaming at 5 star resorts? Give us a call at (619) 696-6966 or fill out our online complaint form.