How do you avoid getting reamed by the mobile carriers?

I’m traveling to the UK, love my mobile phone with all mod cons, but will get creamed by the bill if I use it there.

Any suggestions for UK pay as you go data plans for a smart phone, such as a Nokia?

How do you avoid getting reamed by the carriers for your international roaming data/calls?

Kenneth

Just don’t use a phone. That’s far and away the easiest and most cost effective method.

roaming calls is not as bad as data.

so if you can live with sporadic data, you can do the old coffee shop and other hot-spot stops and a cheap pre-paid SIM from a store there. free wifi hotspots are mapped pretty well these days.

oh yah, probably obvious, but i do this now before getting on the plane… turn off data roaming (or data altogether) on your phone before you leave. learned this the hard way a few years ago upon getting stuck with $200USD of roaming in a little more than a few minutes upon landing in mumbai when my old Q9h windows phone hit e-mail and downloaded every attachment.

if you are traveling with someone who has a local plan at your destination and they have wireless wifi tethering, that’s another way. just carry an auxiliary battery pack.

that said, data roaming prices have gotten better than before, but they’re still pretty bad.

Do not roam, because they ream if you do.

Unfortunately some members of Forumosa have a ‘tad’ too much free time!..

Thanks, mabagal for the most sensible answer… I would normally do that, but the GPS on my phone unit is particularly useful to me… I rarely get lost now.

And it’s much easier than digging out an A-Z map of Central London… Much.

Plus, I like the other 3g features… so not having a mobile phone isn’t much help…

Kenneth

[quote=“KenTaiwan98”]the GPS on my phone unit is particularly useful to me… I rarely get lost now.

And it’s much easier than digging out an A-Z map of Central London… Much.[/quote]
For mapping: there are many apps you can buy that have offline maps. They’re not as good as the Google Maps that the iPhone normally uses, but they’re better than nothing. (Note that the iPhone doesn’t need to use Wifi or 3G to use GPS.)

I’m off to Canada in a month or so, and I’m also wondering the same thing: I’m almost troubled by how much I use my iPhone, and I’ll be looking into pre-paid 3G SIM cards when I arrive in Vancouver. Such things SHOULD exist, but that doesn’t mean they do.

If you look around there are all kinds of “offline” things you can do with mapping and GPS maps - you just have to download the maps when you’re online, and then they’re available for you whenever you want.

Actually, if you’re just in London, look into the Lonely Planet City Guide app - it has pretty good maps, and also information about a reasonable number of restaurants. You don’t need to be online to use it.

EDIT: :doh: I assumed you were using an iPhone. Sorry - should have read more carefully.

Kenneth, I remember looking into this and seeing that you can get a daily rate on unlimited data with a pay as you go card. Something like 10 pounds if I remember rightly. Read the small print, of course - sometimes “unlimited” doesn’t really mean that, especially when it comes to tethering your laptop to the phone.