Original source: e-Turbo NewsWhen it comes to "gotcha" fees, the cell-phone industry makes travel companies look like rank amateurs.
Take what happened to P. Morgan Brown when his wife decided to take a spur-of-the-moment vacation to Indonesia. Her Verizon bill came to a staggering $8,000. Text-messages home cost an astounding $2.50 each, and the meter was running at an eye-popping $1.75 a minute for phone calls.
"We almost missed a mortgage payment when the auto-withdrawal for the first bill came through and wiped out our checking account," says Brown, who works for an Internet company in Aliso Viejo, Calif. "What a waste of money."
Stories like his are becoming more common, according to cellular industry experts - despite some governments' best efforts to contain these exorbitant fees. "The main reason is that people are using their phones more for data than voice calls," says Azita Arvani, a wireless industry consultant based in Los Angeles. With a conventional call, users can gauge the cost per minute and adjust their talk time. But gauging data use isn't as straightforward. An e-mail, Web site or video can gobble up a lot more bandwidth than you'd think.
But what can you do?
Don't let this happen to you. Here are a few strategies to avoid these ridiculous fees:
1. Buy another phone. If you're going to be away for a while, maybe you need a native cell phone. Bruce Molsky, a musician based in Washington, buys a network-unlocked phone when he travels overseas. "The total charges are usually less than a quarter of what AT&T would have charged," he says. "Plus I have the luxury of making and receiving calls in the country I'm in for normal rates."
2. Get a plan. If you're attached to your cell phone, or if it's just a short trip, consider keeping your phone but switching to an overseas calling plan. "You should be able to switch to that plan on a temporary basis, which would give you favorable rates abroad," says Mark Asnes, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the cellular company Wireless Zone. Typically, the rates are between 99 cents and $1.99 per minute. (Still not cheap, but about half what you'd pay if you were plan-less.)
3. Go VOIP. Voice over Internet Protocol - using a PC or other Internet-connected device to make phone calls - is a popular alternative to making cell-phone calls overseas. Michael Brein, a psychologist based in Honolulu, uses the VOIP service called Skype to make inexpensive calls when he's in Europe.
"So long as you have wireless access, then calling from your laptop to phone numbers using Skype-out can be as little as 2 cents a minute," he says. He's also downloaded a Skype app for his iPhone, which allows him to make VOIP calls when he's near a high-speed wireless network.
4. Swap cards. You might be able to have it both ways - keep your phone and get a lower rate than the one offered by your wireless carrier. Andy Abramson, who edits a telephony blog (http://andyabramson.blogs.com), swaps out the SIM cards on his phone when he travels. A SIM card, shorthand for a Subscriber Identity Module, effectively lets you change your phone number to a local one when you're traveling. "I buy local SIMs in country or a travel SIM from SIM4Travel or MaxRoam," he says. "Both offer competitive rates."
5. Leave your phone home. It's the only way to be absolutely sure. The moment you power up your phone, you're in danger of passively checking e-mails or voice mails and incurring unconscionable roaming charges. So the best way of avoiding overseas roaming charges is to not bring your handset at all.
Source: philly.com
