Michelle Higgins of the New York Times reports that you can avoid international roaming charges on your phone. Higgins says that Skype and Truphone offer free apps for making inexpensive international calls using Wi-Fi by paying as you go or signing up for monthly plans with unlimited calls for a single price.
Higgins also suggests the Vonage Mobile App for Facebook. This permits you to make free international calls over Wi-Fi to Facebook friends who also download the app.
Travel Gal Kim Swidler 
8 responses to “Cutting Travel Costs-Avoid Roaming Charges”
Hi,
In my opinion it’s not the best solution to save on roaming charges when abroad because using skype implies the use of internet and data, that can be even more expensive or if you want to use Wi-Fi you’ll have to search for a free spot or pay for it, it’s not very practical and you are not always reachable.
If you really want to save on roaming costs and be reachable all the time you should chose an international sim card, I use WorldSIM but there are more in the market.
They have both a UK and US numbers in the same card, coverage in over 200 countries and free incoming calls in over 90 countries, that is something it’s worth to talk about. Check their website (http://www.worldsim.com) and take your own conclusions or search for more travel sim cards like this.
Thanks and hope I’ve been helpful.
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Thanks Lisa.
Kim
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Hi Kim – full disclosure – I work at Truphone (although we’ve now rebranded as Tru :))
As well as our Apps, we offer a SIM based GSM solution which charges only local rates for calls, texts and Data in the US, UK and Au (so 10c/min / 15c/MB and 8c at text for example) – and competitive roaming rates in 220 other countries around the world. We certainly beat all US carriers in Europe.
I’ve outlined the benefits of Tru vs Travel SIMs such as World SIM below, so you can draw your own conclusions!
1. Call experience: world SIM and Co rely on call-back which is a non-standard calling experience. When the call is placed it is disconnected and the caller waits to be called back for the call to connect. With Tru you call as you would on a landline.
2. Receiving a call: with a Travel SIM, the person calling the user may pay premium rate to place the call. With Tru it’s the price of a normal call
3. Call costs: Tru provides local rates in an expanding number of countries, and is competitive in 220 countries across the wold
4. Data: Few of the Travel SIMs offer data (worldSIM for example, doesn’t. Tru offers data at local rates within our network, and at competitive rates elsewhere.
5. Coverage: roaming SIMs cover 100-220 countries. Tru works in >230 destinations
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The most well known global SIM card on the market is OneSimCard — http://www.onesimcard.com. The company is based in Boston and has been covered by many media outlets including the New York Times. Rates are the lowest around in most countries around the world. Check out the website for yourself to see if it makes sense for where you are traveling.
John
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Thanks John
Kim
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I just found this service http://www.tepwireless.com
It’s a good alternative to cutting roaming bills.
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Thanks Clara!
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Looks good, by the way I got a new job in multinational company & my job requires me to fly frequently. I am looking for a telephone company which can provide me services at cheap & affordable price. I heard about Telestial & found they provide international cell phone rentals at very cheap rate; do you guys have any idea about it?
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