Heading overseas on a business trip or vacation? Working abroad? Giving your high school or college student the opportunity to live and study in a foreign culture? You have the luggage, the tickets, the passport. But are you ready to communicate?
No, I don't mean carrying around a phrase book or one of those electronic translators. I mean how do you stay connected with home or the home office? Have you given it any thought or just figure you'll use whatever facilities they have in the hotel? Ouch! That stabbing pain is coming from you wallet and its hemorrhaging money.
If you need a passport to get where you're going, you should also be making plans for how you'll stay in touch. Internet facilities may be non-existent, hard to find or very expensive. Ditto for standard telephone service, although you'll probably be able to place a phone call at some price just about anywhere. Figuring you'll just flip open your cell phone and call as usual? Oops. It doesn't even work.
A better plan is to control your costs up front. Take your voice and data services with you and use the local facilities only to connect to a toll free or local access number.
Can you take your cell phone along? You can if you are a T-Mobile subscriber and you have a "world phone" that works on the international GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) bands. You'll need a dual band or triple band cell phone for this. The USA cellular band phones don't operate overseas and vice-versa. You also need to activate the T-Mobile "WorldClass" service before you leave to have global roaming on your cell phone.
Otherwise, if you have your heart set on using a cell phone outside your home country, your best bets are to get your service locally. Sign up for cellular service in the country where you'll be staying if you are going to be there for a year or more. If it's just a short trip, you'll be better off renting. Be forewarned, though, these are not necessarily your lowest cost options.
For
telephone calls far away from home, it's hard to beat the billable international calling card. The per minute rates are low, they work to and from most places you are likely to be, there are no minutes to run out and leave you stranded, and you don't pay anything just for having the card or virtual card in you wallet. Your credit card is billed for the calls you make.
By the way, a virtual calling card is just like a regular calling card, sans plastic. You get an account number, PIN, and dialing instructions via email when you sign up for service. You keep this info in a safe place for when you need it. An advantage to this type of service is that you can generally get it ready to use within one business day since there is no physical card to send through the mail. Perfect if you forget to make arrangements until the last minute. A very popular virtual international calling card service is provided by CogniCall. A more traditional plastic card is available from AccuGlobe.
Taking a computer with you? How are you planning to get access? If you need to be connected and aren't sure if you'll always be staying somewhere where they have free or reasonably priced Internet access, you should bring your own along. No, I don't mean your current dial-up or broadband service. There is a special type of Internet service tailored for travelers. It's a pre-paid plan that works something like a calling card for the Internet. You pay for dial-up access by the minute at a fairly low rate that varies with your location. Like the international calling cards, you'll dial a local access number or toll free number so you don't get clobbered by high hotel long distance rates. When you start running low on minutes, you can recharge your account anytime you wish. This service is available from TollFree ISP. It works in 150 countries with 24,000 access numbers worldwide.
Now that you have your international communications plans set, there's only one more thing to say: Bon Voyage!
T1 Rex's Business Telecom Explainer offers easy to understand information about complex telecommunications and networking technology. T1 Rex explains how T1 lines work, VoIP telephone, PBX, virtual private networks, digital audio transport, Wi-Fi & WiMax, fiber optic carriers and other business telecom services.
John Shepler has been a published writer for over 30 years. With a background in electronics engineering technology, he has worked in a variety of industries including radio broadcast, aerospace and manufacturing. Involved in telecommunications since 1998, he combines his interests in writing and technology with T1Rex.com and T1 Rex's Business Telecom Explainer.
