We have all listened to horror stories about people who have travelled to foreign countries and racked up bills ranging into the thousands whenever placing calls whilst not having geared up adequately beforehand. They might think that their mobile phone is “automatically” configured in some manner, to distinguish just where they may be and allow them to make calls and even send text messages and data like they were at home with no advance arrangements. Perhaps they think that their smart phone is one of those newfangled “global” phones and that they shouldn’t plan to make any particular arrangements for their overseas travelling in connectivity terms.
Obviously, we are a lot smarter than that, aren’t we? We know that if we are not very careful we’re going to accrue lots of expensive roaming charges unless we have a specific type of SIM card that is made for the reason.
Technology can come to our rescue today. Were you aware that you can get certain kinds of roaming SIM cards which are specially built to translate what’s basically an outgoing call into an inbound one, at a reduced rate? This is known as call back technology and can be especially useful if you can access it. When this occurs, an individual dials a number in the regular way, but the SIM card is encoded using a special programme which anticipates the call to the end user and somehow “converts” it in order that it becomes an inward bound call to the originator.
Today you can add data services to phone calls, incorporating most of these increasingly crucial tasks into just one bill and making use of lowered data roaming or phone roaming fees.
The moral is that you should always talk with your service provider to ascertain how your phone is presently set up for overseas travel. Understand that it’s the SIM card itself which determines how you gain access to various phone networks and therefore what you will pay in the end.