Cell Phone Use

Donna I posted this in an older thread:

"Just as an FYI - we traveled Europe last year for 30 days Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Czech Rep., Austria and Italy. I had my phone on 24/7 with data. Every time we stepped outside I had Google Maps up - hit the track me button and we used the map. I researched train info, restaurants, hotels, sights, history, what ever on the internet. I sent & checked email. I loved the convenience & ease of it. I made a few phone calls and sent & received some texts. In all my phone bill went up $239 for the 30 day period - not bad at all I thought. No nightmare surprise bills here. If I can afford 30 days in Europe $239 is a small price to pay. I am with Verizon and we had coverage everywhere we went - I did have to call them when we landed in Barcelona as I had no service - my luck they were having an issue there but once I put in the trouble ticket it was corrected within an hour. Google voice over the wifi was a great back up to make that call."

In 30 days I used appx 800 MB with phone on 24/7

Verizon Global Roaming has 100 MB of data for $25 - when you use 100MB you are charged for 100 more MB at $25

Hope this helps

I will assume that you have already contacted Verizon for information related to your questions. Your post should get some responses here as I have seen similar questions in the past. aloha

donna,

As Charlie mentioned, the first step will be to contact Verizon for more information on the options for using your phones for travel. Given my location, I don't use Verizon so I'm not too familiar with their calling plans, but I believe they have optional "travel packs" that can be added for small additional cost. For occasional use, that might be the best option especially if you're going to be travelling through several countries.

One question to clarify is which model iPhones you're using? I believe only the 4S and later are designed for dual GSM / CDMA use, so an iPhone 4 or earlier won't operate in Europe. I assume your Airbnb provides Wi-Fi rather than a wired internet connection? If that's the case, try to use Wi-Fi with your iPhones as much as possible as that will minimize the 3G data use.

One important point to mention is that when travelling with your home phones, anyone making a local call to your number will reach you in Europe, and YOU will pay for EACH incoming call. Calls received in the wee hours of the morning from someone that didn't bother to check the time are especially annoying!

In addition to the advice to talk to Verizon first about costs, Rick offers these tips: http://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/phones-tech.

I appreciate the information everyone has shared. Ken, you are correct only iPhone 4s and and up can be used in Europe. And, yep, we have iPhone 4s. Since we can use our iPad, and even the iPhones, when we have wireless connection at our Airbnb we are now thinking we may just need to rent a phone for the one or two calls back to the states or for emergencies. We are looking into Verizon's Global Travel, Planet Fone, and eKit (through raileurope). Has anyone rented through any of them or could make a different recommendation?

I am so appreciative of the people who take the time to respond on this forum. It has been very helpful as we plan our trip.

Donna

Rather than rent a phone you can use google voice for free to call the US from your US phone via wifi. It is easy to set up and you can receive calls on it too.

We started using T Mobile anticipating our European trip. They're the cellular carrier for a number of countries, like Hungary and Czech Republic. T Mobile's $50 monthly service includes unlimited data worldwide, and $.20 voice calls back home. And no long term service contract is required. Someone could sign up, use it for a month and cancel the service.

We'd get phone calls in the middle of the night in Europe, and it'd be our 2 1/2 year old granddaughter calling us on her mother's speed dial.

After 2 weeks in Europe, my monthly bill went up about $15.

Unfortunately, Verizon phones won't work on T Mobile. But an AT&T phone can be unlocked and used on T Mobile.

donna,

I wouldn't suggest renting a phone, since that's usually an expensive and awkward solution. You have phones that will work in Europe, so why not use them. There are a few options you could consider.....

• Set one of your phones up on the Verizon global roaming plan (or whatever they call it). You'll have to decide whether you want to pay for just voice and text, or data as well. You'll still have to contend with receiving calls from those that don't know you're travelling, and if you don't opt for a data plan you MUST leave cellular data blocked for the duration of the trip. DON'T assume that if you leave the phone switched off at times and let calls go to voice mail that you'll avoid charges, as you may still get charged (that requires more of a lengthy explanation, if you're interested).
• If your budget will allow, set up the second phone on a roaming plan for only voice and text, as that will provide a means to keep in touch if you're separated (using text is the cheapest method). Leave the cellular data blocked on that one for the duration of the trip. If your budget won't allow, either leave the second phone at home and use the iPad Mini for E-mail and internet use, or take the phone along but leave it in "Airplane mode" with the Wi-Fi switched on and just use it for internet use in Wi-Fi areas.
• Buy an inexpensive unlocked quad band phone from E-Bay or wherever and use it with a "travel SIM" from one of the travel phone firms such as Roam Simple, Cellular Abroad, Telestial, Mobal, EuroBuzz, OneSim, Max Roam or others (you could also buy a phone and SIM package from one of the firms as some of them have phones at ~$30 and SIM cards at ~$5 so that might be cheaper than buying off E-Bay). That will (IMO) be the best solution if you're travelling in multiple countries and don't want to be bothered with calls from home. One advantage of this solution is that you wouldn't have to contend with calls from home as you'd be on a different number, but you'd still be able to make calls back to the U.S. Many of the travel phone firms use U.K.-based numbers and post-paid billing (calls charged to a credit card), so no issues with having to top-up.

I've been using a "travel SIM" with my iPhone 4S for the last few years (and before that a flip phone), and so far that method has worked well, although data is quite pricey. I'm still looking at my options for this year.

There are all kinds of possibilities.....

Glad to see Charli's post about using Verizon. We are heading to Europe in a week, and while I had been planning on unlocking my phone and using local SIMs, I decided I will probably just use my data sparingly with Verizon's data roaming. The rates ($25 per 100MB of data) seem reasonable enough, and it seems much more convenient than dealing with unlocking my phone and buying extra SIM cards. I spent the last couple of weeks monitoring how much data I normally use here in the States, and it appears that a 3-week trip would result in $75 extra costs at most IF I use my phone as compulsively as I do at home. I used WiFi only on our last trip and it wasn't all that inconvenient, but I would like to be able to use some data for maps, transit, etc.

Our phones are iPhone4 and so will not work in Europe. I think I caused some confusion by using 's' to indicate plural and it looked like we had the later version of iPhone. Thank you for sharing so many options Ken.

Thanks to everyone for your input. We decided we wanted phones "just on case" and since our IPhones won't work on Europe we decided to buy phones from Eurobuzz. The reviews are good, the price is great, and we liked the no contract, pay-as-you-use aspect.

Maybe it's time to dump Verizon. TMobile pays early termination fees and gives a trade in allowance on older phones. Turn on the phone in Europe without a second thought. TM is the only US carrier that gets it. We are subscribers not employees.

As a follow-up: I just stopped by the Verizon store to talk about international plan options. They confirmed the $25/100MB international data plan, and they also informed me that my iPhone is already unlocked so I can just use a local SIM card instead of using their plan if I want to. Not sure if this applies to earlier versions of the iPhone, but good to know nonetheless.

I bought the $25/100m Verizon data plan to locate when lost and to make calls via Skype if needed and all when away from WiFi. Worked fine. Oh, I usually keep around $10 credit in the Skype account for calls to landlines and cell phones which cost pennies a minute.

I can upgrade my cell phone in about 10 days so I am definitely interested in this topic. I am looking at excellent reviews for the latest Droid Maxx. Reviewers say it is the best smartphone Verizon ever offered.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/16/motorola-droid-maxx-review/

We live in an area where almost everybody has Verizon and none of the other networks seem as reliable.

The Droid Maxx is unlocked and takes a nano SIM. I think that a nano SIM is now common. Is that right?

I am thinking about the Telestial Explorer SIM. I don't think I want to use Verizon Global. Here's a link to the Telestial Explorer SIM card > http://www.telestial.com/view_product.php?ID=MSIM-EX02#none

I am very open to suggestions.

Our last trip, in 2011, we "thought" we wouldn't use as much voice or data as we really did - but we used it more than anticipated and racked up some expensive roaming bills. So I urge those of you who are planning to to just curb your device usage to think again about the convenience and usefulness you may be sacrificing. I wish I had just accepted that I love what the internet can now give tourists and planned to get those data costs managed. This more recent trip, 2014, we did it right and got low-cost SIM cards for our tablets.

We agree that using your devices for phoning, texting, and data for google maps, tripadvisor restaurant locating and ratings and yelp are all very useful in Europe, especially if you intend to do any spontaneous, exploratory travel. We're glad we didn't just expect wi-fi to meet all our needs. We traveled with two tablets and two phones for 3 weeks - all connected with mobile cellular using European SIM cards and daily relied on google maps to tell us where we were, and how to get to where we were going. Getting hungry? Need a well-rated restaurant nearby? Tripadvisor or yelp to the rescue! All this requires a good data connection, a SIM card. So you are right about your intended usage of tablet data. You'll be happy with what you can do once connected. It really opened up more spontaneous options for us and gave us more freedom and choices..

We also wanted to lighten our pack, a la Rick Steves style, so we went as paperless as possible, using Kindle versions of guides and maps, etc. We heavily relied on our tablets and phones and don't regret it. All requiring data usage beyond wi-fi.

After looking at a lot of companies, we settled on lefrenchmobile for a lot reasons. But what works for you will depend on how many countries you visit, how much voice, voice and text, and voice text and data you will use. Lefrenchmobile was not the cheapest, but but in my opinion it was the easiest to use, easiest to understand, there were not hidden "gotchas" and English phone support, flexibility and so on. For an on-the-go tourist, that seemed the best company. But we were mostly based in France and that had some influence. They had good plans for roaming into other countries too. We will use them again.

I have an iPhone 5 and have used the Verizon global voice and data plan on three separate week-long trips to Western Europe within the past 12 months. Admittedly, I made very few calls (but was reachable in the event of an emergency at home) and only ended up using a portion of the 25 MB of data because the hotels I stayed at had wifi. I only used the cellular (data) service when out and about to check weather, Google something, make a reservation, etc. I was able to keep my U.S. phone number and there was no messing with buying SIM cards, etc.

Hey, you guys are scaring me! What's this about only a iPhone 4 and up being usable in Europe. I have an unlocked 3gs and I've been assured by every Sim card company I have contacted that it is usable in Europe.

Do you guys know something they don't???

snowsilver: It depends on your carrier. If your iPhone is from AT&T or T-Mobile, all models are quad-band and will work in Europe. But if it is from AT&T or Verizon, only 4S and higher (5, 5C, 5S) will work for data, voice and text in Europe. If you have a Verizon or Sprint iPhone 4 (but not 4S), it will work on WiFi only (in effect, it becomes an iPod Touch in Europe). You cannot use it for calls, texts, or cellular data.

We live on our iPhones in California. But I never really found a good way to have a phone in Europe so we tried going without one in 2010....then 2011, 2012, and 2013. We had really great trips just checking email in the morning and evening from our hotels. I THINK our Vonage World account will let us make calls whenever we have wifi for our trip this year, but I'm not sure I'll use it. It's kind of refreshing to be phone-free.

In all the above discussions I have not read anything about Sprint. Unfortunately (?) I'm locked into another year contract with Sprint. We have a RS trip in September and hope to use our iPhone4s. Comments please. Would rather not mess with SIM cards if we can get around it. We won't be using much data except Wifi.

Barb

@Barb, We had Sprint last year and put service on vacation hold -- so only used phones as WiFi connection devices in the hotel and cameras. On the positive side, the cost was much less than the regular service.

Thanks Donna. I would like to use very limited phone to check reservations etc. and limited text msgs home also. Any other input appreciated.
Barb

Hi,

If phone says "WCDMA/GSM" - does it work fine in France? I'm thinking about buying an ASUS fonetab from ebay US.

It says:

•Network Standard:

•DC-HSPA+ UL:5.76 Mbps/DL:42 Mbps
•3G: ◦WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100
•2G : ◦EDGE/GSM : 850/900/1800/1900

ASUS Fonepad Atom Z2560 1.6GHz 1GB 8GB 7" Unlocked GSM+3G Phone/Dual Camera /blk

======================
So this means it should work fine in France if I have a French SIM card (from Prixtel)?

TIA,
Vera

veratek1,

Just a note for your next post.

you should start a new thread on you questions since your question may get lost and not get answered.

to answer your question, yes your phone will work, but is not 4G (latest and greatest) capable.

happy trails and welcome.