How to Get Online When Travelling Overseas

Dear James,

I’m going overseas and I’d like to know the best way to get online with my mobile phone, iphone, blackberry, ipad, laptop or other mobile device.

Hi,

There are a number of important things to consider before going overseas with any of the above devices.  Many don’t realise that substantial international data roaming costs occur for most telco’s both in Australia where I am and overseas as well.

The way you connect and communicate can also often depend on the length of time you plan on travelling – it’s one thing to pay a premium for the Internet or for phone calls during a short trip – you might even expect and be ok with this short term bill increase, but if you’re planning on travelling for several days or weeks you may wish to think of some alternatives.

Making Phone Calls

International roaming can be expensive but may be the only practical solution when travelling overseas particularly if you’re running a business.  Before you travel you’ll need to contact your telco and ask them to enable international roaming, otherwise your phone will be a brick once you get there.

Other alternatives include using a local calling card - I know that personally when I travel to either the US or Asia on short trips I use a calling card for all my calls back to Australia or locally and I keep my mobile “roaming” so that I can receive calls.  These days with international Caller ID  you can see who is calling you before you answer and this is important because most telco’s charge you not only for making calls but to receive calls as well.  

I like to screen my calls and stay in touch this way but for many this might not be practical or affordable.

Another alternative is to use Skype from your laptop or iPad – Skype’s international calling rates are cheaper and if you’ve got a laptop already connected to the Internet in your hotel that could be a useful lower cost alternative.

Using a local Sim Card

Another alternative is to use a local sim card to make and receive calls whilst overseas – the local sim card which fits in your own mobile phone will give you a local telephone number to make calls from your current destination.  Unfortunately a lot of phones are ” telco locked” particularly if you bought them on a plan here in Australia so check with your provider before you attempt this as you may be disappointed once you arrive at your destination. 

If a local sim card won’t go in your own phone, an alternative is to buy a very cheap mobile phone with a local sim and only use your own phone for urgent international roaming-type calls or the aforementioned calling card or Skype.

Getting Online Overseas

This is something I get asked about a lot so I hope this resource is helpful to you.  The challenge with getting online overseas really depends on where you choose to stay, what devices you have and of course what your budget is. 

-Data Roaming

One thing you need to be careful of when turning on International Roaming is that your telco will also turn on data roaming.  Data roaming means that your device such as an iPhone or Blackberry will be able to download emails and other Internet content while travelling – the major downside of this is that data roaming often comes at a substantial cost – I think of my own provider here in Australia, Telstra who charge $30 per megabyte for overseas data roaming.  That equates to a handful of emails for me and simply isn’t an option except for very short bursts when I urgently need my email and don’t have an alternative.  Most current mobile devices have an option to turn off data roaming and this is something I recommend unless you don’t have any other option.   You can usually do this by going into the settings of your mobile device. 

Examples:

iPhone (3G and up) – Settings > General > Network > Turn off Data Roaming
Blackberry Options > Mobile Network > then set Data Services to `Off When Roaming`

Another example of data roaming is when you have a 3G card (often called a 3G dongle) with your laptop – data roaming charges also apply to these devices so be mindful of this before travelling.  By default your telco should have this capability turned off.

-Hotel WiFi

You would be hard pressed to find a hotel these days anywhere in the world that doesn’t have Internet but the quality and the cost varies.    As far as International travel goes I think hotel Internet is one of the better options.  If knowing how you’ll connect when you arrive is important to you then it might pay to contact the hotel in advance by email asking what sort of Internet facilities they have and what the cost is.  I have found personally that if I stay at one hotel for 3+ days then the Internet rate is reasonable and in most cases reliable but of course this is just my experience and there are so many destinations in the world that it is hard to say which ones are good and which aren’t.

If you’re travelling with multiple devices that need the Internet such as a laptop, an iPhone or an iPad just remember that the hotel may charge “per device” rather than just a single fee.  Check with the hotel before connecting up and perhaps only take devices you think you’ll really use. 

That is, unless you have the opportunity to try personal wifi:

-Personal WiFi or “MiFi”

This is a fairly new and for us techie types who have more than one device attached to our belt or in our backpack.  Personal WiFi is a little device you can pick up in many locations particularly in Europe and the US.  It is basically like a phone that you carry around with a local sim card.  It then broadcasts an Internet single over WiFi (WiFi is how most devices connect to the Internet these days).  By having a Personal MiFi you can be travelling anywhere within that country and your laptop, phone and tablet PC such as the iPad can all be connected to the Internet at once.   It will require a little bit of research up front but definitely an option for those of us who need to be connected all of the time.  Because the “MiFi” uses a local sim card you don’t need to worry about International data roaming pricing.

-Travelling with a laptop or Macbook

Probably the most common device to travel with in the world is a laptop or macbook.  As mentioned earlier you may also have a 3G dongle that you use locally but this may not suit you when travelling due to the cost of data roaming.

The best way to connect a laptop locally is to either find out whether your hotel offers free or paid wifi or have a MiFi device with a local sim card. 

Another alternative although not always available is to look for coffee shops, pubs and other places that offer a free WiFi service.  In most of the US you can get online for free at Starbucks although I had a recent experience in Berkeley where there was so many free-Internet-hungry students on the Starbucks network that my Internet was too slow to do anything.  The bottom line is if you just need to jump online on the off chance occasionally then free wifi will do but if you have critical work to do or you need to use Skype you’ll want to have a reliable paid service on hand.

-Travelling with an iPad

Admittedly, the iPad is probably one of the easier devices to travel with.  It is small, compact and light and it isn’t usually locked to a particular network like phones are.  When travelling with an iPad and if you’re hoping not to have to buy any additional devices like a sim card or a MiFi then check with the hotel first to see if they offer free or paid Internet wifi services.  Perhaps they do and that’s great, but if you see yourself also needing to travel around and be on the Internet then a good idea is to drop into a local telco store at your destination and ask them if they sell an iPad sim card with a data pack.  Many countries will, although you may need to check with a few stores.

At this stage the Australian sim cards for iPad do not offer a global data roaming service which, as mentioned before is probably a good thing due to the sheer cost of data when travelling.

Other Devices

Most of the principles mentioned above apply to all devices so I haven’t specifically mentioned every other type of device available.  I will say that almost every single device on the market today and particularly the ones we’re all used to like laptops, macbooks, ipads, iphones, blackberries, windows mobiles and so forth all have a “WiFi” connection to them so as soon as you find WiFi somewhere simply track that down and get yourself connected.

International Roaming Costs

If you think you can handle the cost of making phone calls or data roaming whilst overseas then check out this quick list of roaming costs for Australian telco’s below:

http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/internat_roaming/

http://www.vodafone.com.au/personal/international-roaming/international-roaming/index.htm

http://personal.optus.com.au/web/ocaportal.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=Template_woRHS&FP=/personal/mobile/usingyourmobileoverseas/postpaidautoroam&site=personal

Happy travels!