Cell phone tips when abroad

[Siliobear]

Any tips about bringing your cell phone when traveling abroad? We're headed to China. Per my carrier (T-Mobile), we should have coverage there, but international roaming is $2.99/minute. I'm more concerned about my Blackberry. Someone told me I will be charged international long distance rates for any data received (T-Mo charges $15/MB). I can't turn off the browser feature and T-Mo says if I temporarily cancel that feature, the price will increase when I reactivate it because I've been grandfathered into an older rate.

I still have my old *regular* phone and was thinking of bringing that instead. Maybe even buy a China-based SIM card while there. Your thoughts?

 

[kristilew]

Part of our family agreement for the Adventures is that DH leaves his crackberry turned off for the duration of the trip, so I can't speak to the data charges. But every country we've been in the past few years has had cell phones available for rent at the airport. They're basically like the prepaid ones you can get at a Walmart here. I think they are pricey, so you just have to do the math on which is the better value for you.

 

[Traveling Tinkerbell]

I have a Blackberry with AT&T and I used it during our China trip last year. AT&T has a world traveler program that reduces the per minute charge for a small extra fee per month under this program. Maybe TMobile has a similar plan.

I have a 8310 Blackberry and I can turn off the data services and still use the phone side only. Follow this path on your Blackberry - go to Manage Connections ---> Mobile Network Options ---> Turn Data Services to Off -----> save your changes and see if that works for you. It should work for you!

 

[Siliobear]

Thanks, TT. My settings are different on the Pearl, but I found it and there's a setting for Data Services that is "Off when roaming"...this way I don't need to remember to turn it on/off. Even the T-Mo rep didn't know about this!

 

[kristilew]

There's a cute article in this month's Conde Nast Traveler called the Smart Phone Smackdown. http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/500791 It compares a Blackberry, and Iphone and a guidebook against 9 travel challenges.

No bearing (no pun intended) on OP's question, but a fun read.

 

[DisneyFairytale]

I took my phone down from Canada, down to France for 2 weeks and it was on the entire time. What you need to make sure is if you have a smart phone(iPhone and others)you need to make sure you turned that part of the phone off.
Having caller ID set up on your phone is a good way to filter and screen your calls if you don't want to answer phone calls that are not urgent. I am going to be going down to California at the end of June and simply leaving my phone at home. Unless you know you are or might be expecting an important phone call, leave it at home.

Saves you the money and risk of losing it or having to pay any hidden charges you weren't aware of before the trip.

 

[Brancaneve]

On the Clark Howard's radio show, he has brought up several scary stories of consumers getting $5000 bills for checking email(in Canada)!!! Someone called in to say they downloaded a movie in Mexico and were charged $16,000!

He suggested a few websites I can't remember but the information should be on clarkhoward.com. I know my parents "rented" a phone in Europe and called friends and family to inform them of their new number. That seemed to work well.

 

[gailpetrillo]

The phone cost $10 and wasn't the best but served my purpose of being able to get in touch with someone in the states for an emergency. I didn't want to be out of contact in Italy, especially since we added a few additional days onto ourtrip. I also bought an taly sim card on ebay which cost about $35. SO basically for $50, I had the contact I needed. After I got home, I sold the phone on ebay for $5.