I will be in Switzerland for @ 6 months and am trying to figure out what to do about a cell phone.
I will be communicating with colleagues via whatsapp and I know I can download citmaps2go or another app for maps etc to be used offline. I can facetime family in the US with my iphone on wifi.
I want the ease of being able to make a call if need be, just want the freedom to use the phone as I do here in the US.
So - one option I'm considering is switching from verizon to TMobile One with their unlimited text and data (puts them ahead of Verizon) Although calls over wifi are $.25 / minute. Not sure what roaming charges would be.
Purchase a prepaid Sim card, but that seems to be @$15 -20 and from what I have read lasts @ a month, and may not work if I travel to Italy, France or Germany.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks so much. Love reading all the suggestions on these forums.
Posted by
Portland, Oregon
5687 posts
First of all, T-Mobile and Sprint (both have the same international roaming plan, more or less) would probably be the most practical for a short visit. However, their roaming plans are not intended for people using them overseas for long periods of time. You might get your service cut off at some point if you are using the phone in Europe for six months. I have heard of it happening to people.
So I'd probably assume you dump US phone service while you are gone and use European SIMs. But, you can save your current US cell phone number and even use it while in Europe, for free (see below).
For US phone calls, I'd look into Google Voice and Google Hangouts. They allow free calls with Hangouts to US numbers, even to landlines, from Europe or anywhere. Hangouts is a Voice Over IP (VOIP) app like WhatsApp, but unlike WhatsApp, you can just call phones - the people you are calling don't need WhatsApp to be able to receive calls from you. Handy to call your bank or airline etc. in a pinch without worrying about per-minute rates on calls.
Google Voice is kind of a phone forwarding service - Google gives you a free phone number and will forward calls to your existing phone number(s). It also works with Hangouts, if you want to receive incoming calls too. Hangouts works on either WiFi or mobile data if you have a SIM of any sort. I use it in Europe to call home and receive calls from US numbers, for free.
If you want to keep your existing number before you cancel US phone service, port your number to Google Voice - a one-time $20 fee. This will immediately cancel your Verizon service, however, so be prepared for that. I'd probably sign up for a prepaid US service about a month before you leave for Switzerland (new number), then port out your old number to Google, which will cancel the Verizon service...then just use the US prepaid service until leave for Switzerland. (And then cancel the prepaid service - don't use the new number except to have Google forward your calls to it f from your old number.)
In Europe, I'm not sure of your best SIM option. Switzerland is not in the EU, so the "roam like at home" no-roaming-fees rules don't apply to Swiss mobile companies. There may be Swiss SIM plans that allow cheap roaming anyway. Here are some Swiss SIM
options:
http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Switzerland
If you want phone service when you arrive in Switzerland, consider the Dutch Vodafone SIM - you can buy one on eBay. Even though they aren't required to, they do include free roaming in Switzerland, for data, anyway. The Dutch Vodafone SIM will give you a Dutch phone number. Calls out are 20 cents per minute but incoming calls (and texts) are free. You can get a "you" package to get 3GB of data for 20 euros for 30 days. (Right now they double that to 6GB of data, not sure if that will last.) The Vodafone SIM may not be your best choice for all six months - could be you can find a better Swiss SIM option once you arrive and have time to sort it out, but meanwhile you'll have service with Vodafone for the first month.
Meanwhile, I'd sign up for Google Voice and install Google Hangouts right away (also install Hangouts Dialer if you have an Android phone). You can do that all today for free without changing your existing phone service. You'll get a new number from Google. You can turn on incoming calls in Hangouts. So start playing with it now. Make calls on Hangouts and try it out (it's not perfect but it works). You can use it the same way in Europe. But if you port your number to Google ($20 one-time) you replace that new number with your old one, and you can use it with any phone service and keep your old number while in Europe and even after you get home.