Simple guide to travel next to your cell phone

The newspaper El País, from Spain, reveals the tricks to avoid charges for ‘roaming’ and staying connected. The details, below.

More than a tourist or business traveler has been scared to return from a trip abroad and find themselves at home or in the office with a phone bill of hundreds of euros. Does that mean you’re a cell phone junkie? Do not; Roaming is the fault of the roaming service provided by mobile operators by default when traveling outside the country; It keeps you connected, but paying. Even if you have a flat telephone rate in Spain, with or without an Internet connection.

To avoid scares

The best solution to avoid scares with invoices is to disable roaming data and 3G connection in the mobile. Most mobile phones allow you to do so from the menu: go to the “settings” / “wireless and networks” / “mobile networks” icon, and once there uncheck the boxes where you put “use data packets” and ” Data roaming “, which can generate extra expenses. Until last summer, when roaming calls were regulated, which is also known as roaming, operators could charge whatever they wanted to their overseas customers. With the new regulation, the maximum price within the European Union is 29 cents per minute in calls, 8 cents per minute in calls received, 9 cents per send a text message and 70 cents per mega in Internet connections (All of these prices must be added VAT).

Spending Alert

The new standard extends the alert system to prevent high bills that already existed in Europe to countries outside the Union, where nails are usually higher: unless a personal limit is specified, users receive a warning message from their company when Your bill is close to 50 euros per month (if the foreign telephone network is compatible with this system); Then the connection is suspended.

Border calls

Speaking just and accurately and being as brief as possible is the golden rule if you call from abroad using roaming. And the same goes for calls from the hotel room, which are usually very expensive, as for calls from the high seas. With the boom in cruise tourism, some operators have begun offering coverage on ships, albeit at very high prices. When we are out of the country we pay for both the calls we make and the ones we receive, so it is better not to answer those that are not urgent if roaming is used. In border areas, the phone usually registers automatically on foreign networks when it loses coverage of its own network. To prevent this from occurring you have to configure via the mobile menu if you want the network selection to be “automatic” (default), or “manual”. If you select the manual option, the phone will perform a “network search” that will display the available ones. In this case, the phone will not be operational to make or receive calls until the registration in the selected network is confirmed.

Desperately Seeking WI-FI

The best strategy to talk or surf without costing you is to use only free Wi-Fi networks. Like those that exist in airports (except in Spain, which are for payment), cafes, shops and common areas of hotels (if there is an Internet connection in the room, before plugging in you have to ask at the reception if it is paid or free ). If there is an open network in the vicinity, the phone (or tablet, or laptop) will detect it and connect itself; If it is a password protected network, even if it is free, you have to ask for the password at the counter or at the reception desk.

Photo credit: Viajes al alcance de todos