Traveling outside this summer? Below are the best tips to avoid roaming phone fees

Modern smartphones make international travel a breeze compared to the old days. The superpower or iOS in your pocket contains all the downloadable applications, including features to reserve hotel rooms smoothly, transport cities, translate signs via the camera, and pay the price of goods and services. With the latest program promotions, you can translate the conversations in actual time with features that work with artificial intelligence materials and even Ask assistants who work with the same Amnesty International to obtain travel advice.

All features of the phone and luxury applications work better – and sometimes only work – with data connection. Although this is covered with your local plan, it usually comes with additional roaming fees when traveling abroad. Here’s how to avoid these accusations.

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First of all, you will want to understand the price of these additional fees or if you have traveled to a cheaper or free area with your transportation company. Some mobile transport companies have made a partnership with transport companies in other countries to get more roaming at reasonable prices or even free service, albeit with some restrictions. For example, some plans-such as T-Mobile’s Essentials-offer free service in Canada and Mexico, but only at slow, 2G or 3G speeds. So do not expect a lot of video to flow on this connection.

But traveling to most countries will require you to pay the roaming fees over the mobile phone if you try to use data services, make voice calls, or send text messages on your phone as usual. If this is your plan, check our guide for the best travel phone plans.

If you want to avoid roaming via mobile phone, put the following tips in mind.

Prepare a mobile phone service before leaving

Some transport companies will allow you to choose early travel service options, which can include daily, weekly or monthly flat fees to obtain a service from partners in other countries. You can wait until you reach your destination and wait until you are required to select the service you have chosen or you can prepare it early. Note that some transport companies will simply fail to these services instead of imposing higher roaming fees, although it is worth confirming before traveling.

these International plans Very convenient, although some may come with warnings such as not breaking them behind the other transport company customers, which means that you will get slower speeds during traffic times. Check the fine printing for each travel plan to know its restrictions and what you may need to pay for an additional service.

Verizon international plans Simply start, with $ 10 a day, you get 2 GB per day of high -speed data and unlimited 3G data, as well as free audio calls and text messages, in more than 210 countries. This plan is deducted to $ 5 per day in Canada and Mexico.

If you have one of the latest transport company plans, known as Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Help, you will get these features in Canada and Mexico. Customers who have the best Ultimate Ultimate option from Verizon will get this international data in Canada and Mexico as well as for more than 210 countries.

AT & T has a similar travel plan worth $ 10 a day for unlimited data, audio calls and text. Data is in exchange for your usual plan; The transition will be charged and/or reduce the download speeds of a 2G similar connection. If you do not register in this plan, the traditional roaming fees will start, charge a text message, and Megabyte of data and the option of voice connection.

Unlimited data for Canada and Mexico are included in the unlimited AT & T plans, while unlimited elite plans in unlimited transport company and unlimited plans also allow unlimited data in 20 countries from Latin America.

T-Mobile has its own international plans with an unlimited summons, but it is very modest with data, starting at $ 5 per day for the half of Gigabyte from the downloaded data. Keep in mind that the standard plans for the carrier also include some international data allowances.

Magenta and GO5G plans provide up to 10 GB of high -speed data per month in Canada and Mexico, and once this is used, you get unlimited data at very slow speeds (as we mentioned earlier, the cheaper basics plan only gets data in Canada and Mexico at 2G speeds). The following GO5G plans, Go5G Plus and Magenta Max have a small 5 GB of high -speed data in more than 215 countries, although this is subject to potential additional taxes and conditions. The GO5G standard plans get 5 GB data allowance in 11 European countries.

Although it is possible to raise your plan for this month (or more), you are traveling and returning to your old plan after that, you are likely to pay only for international data.

Get a mobile phone service directly from a local transport company

Before the transport companies became more friendly through their international agreements to support each other’s customers, one of the best travel strategies was to obtain service directly from the carrier in the country you were traveling to. Once you land, you just walk in a retail store at the local telecommunications company and get a prepaid SIM card to continue your trip.

This is still possible today, but it is a little more complicated. If you have one of the many phones that lack the physical SIM hole, including the latest iPhone 15 series and the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, you will have to register in the service through an ESIM account on your device. It is very easy to do, and it is actually one of the benefits of multiple digital ESIM holes – so you can get one for home use down – but it requires you to register through the carrier in question. You can even download ESIM before traveling, through applications such as Airalo and Obigi.

Unfortunately, there is something else that must be taken into account: whether your phone is opened, this is not related to a carrier and registered in the use of ESIMS from other transport companies (even international). If you buy your device not closed, you are clear.

If you pay your phone in installments from your transportation company, this is complicated. Verizon users have it better, because their installment plans open phones after 60 days. However, AT & T and T-Mobile requires you to finish your installments and pay your phone completely to open it. Since the AT&T plans are at least 36 months, customers may be lucky to get the local transport company ESIM unless they approach the end of their contract – in which case it may make sense to pay the balance for more freedom of travel.

Depending on a hot point and connecting

Another way to avoid roaming is a little more than the dizziness and requires you to subscribe to the service with a local airline anyway, but you will not have to rotate with ESIMS. When you land in the country of your travel, you can rent a hot phone point (or register the service on one that you already own), which is a mobile device that converts cell signals into Wi-Fi.

Note that you still need to pay for the service either from the hot maker or from a local transport company, and there is nothing to ensure that its networks play well with a specific hot point device. Check that he will work in the area you travel.

Once you set up one, you can only connect to the hot point Wi-Fi network using your phone as usual. Although it is a little more complicated, this also allows you to get the Internet for your other devices, such as tablets and laptops, to a large extent where you get a phone signal from a local transport company.

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Another warning is that you will need to keep the hot charging itself, which is another battery that you must worry. It may be useful to carry an external battery to ensure that your hot point can last a full day as you leave.

In the end, any option you choose should fit your customs and destinations. Some of the transportation company partnership options will be more attractive, but they provide slower speeds than obtaining the service directly from the local transport company. But don’t worry about locking in the selection: You can always try one of the ways when you get and switch to another if there is a better option to show itself.