WHICH makes Alexander Graham Bell more grateful to be dead, you think: that the doohickey he devoted his life to inventing is now used to for slingshotting birds into evil pigs, or that people pay up to hundreds of dollars a month for the pleasure?
Mr. Bell can take pride in at least one thing: Today, smartphones — your Droids, your iPhones, your what-have-you’s — are enhancing our lives in ways unheard of even just a few years ago. Particularly when it comes time to hit the road.
Some people believe you have to get lost in order to truly experience a city — these people are hoopleheads. If you’re clueless in Caracas, allow your GPS-enabled phone and its Google Maps app to tell you exactly where you are. Don’t guess at what those Parisian parking signs are telling you; go ahead and translate them in seconds. Convert currency, or simply check if ours has any remaining value, anywhere in the world, in an instant. Find out if the restaurant your concierge is suggesting is any good, or if there are better hotels down the street, should he turn out to be shilling for his buddies. Augmented reality apps like Google Goggles that can tell you what UNESCO World Heritage Site you’ve just stumbled upon by just snapping its photo and waiting for a second. (Well, in a perfect world, anyway; it’s still pretty early days for the likes of image recognition.)
You name it, you do it; all in real time, all really easy. Or is it? Before you go anywhere, check this checklist — make sure your phone is optimized, not to mention capable, wherever you’re going. And for goodness’ sake, make sure you know all about roaming fees. For the details on all of the above, read on.
FIRST THINGS FIRST. Right off the bat, two things you need to know when taking your phone on the road for the first time. One, is it going to work? No matter how awesome your new favorite toy, if it’s the wrong phone, or it’s the right phone but not set up correctly, you’re now essentially toting a vibrating paperweight around the world. Next, say your phone does work. Do you know how much your provider charges for international data roaming? Get that one wrong, and you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself when next month’s phone bill gut shots you at hundreds of dollars above the usual.
THE RIGHT PHONE. Mobile phone-wise, most of the world uses GSM technology, and phones that operate on GSM networks use those little snap-in, snap-out SIM cards usually found lurking under your phone’s battery. In the United States, phones are either GSM — AT&T and T-Mobile — or CDMA (Verizon, Sprint). The easiest way to ensure capability on the road is to get a GSM phone. That, or make sure that your Verizon or Sprint model is what’s known as a worldphone — like the Droid 2 Global from Verizon, or Sprint’s HTC Touch Pro2 — which basically means it can jump onto GSM networks when needed. Best case scenario, it’ll have quad-band support, ensuring all your bases are covered, since there are GSM networks that use different frequency bands depending on the region.
GET ENABLED. Okay, so now you’ve got the best totally cosmopolitan / worldly-wise, quad-band GSM capable smartphone/worldphone money can buy. Next, you have to make sure the thing is ready to travel. You need an international data roaming plan. All providers offer them, none of them great. Usually, you have your choice of monthly global plans, sometimes it’s pay-as-you-go. If you’re only going to be e-mailing or IMing, the lowest priced, lowest megabyte-limit package might be sufficient. (Note: Text messaging does not involve data usage, if you were wondering.) Anything more than simple chatting back and forth is going to cost you — often $20 or so for each megabyte. So, just because you can access YouTube in Senegal on your iPhone doesn’t mean you can afford to. While there, you’re a guest on Sonatel’s GSM network, which has an “arrangement“ with AT&T. (Nice work if you can get it.) Remember: Activating data roaming means that your phone will roam until you don’t want it to anymore, regardless of whether or not you’re using it. Make sure your settings are adjusted correctly — a few taps of the thumb could save you a whole world of hurt.
IT’S A COMPUTER. USE IT. When you get a smartphone, you’re basically now carting around a tiny computer. So fire it up already. While we recommend international roaming plans in general — for emergencies and suchlike — you can also just forget the phone, switch off your data and switch on the wireless network finder. This way, you’ll be notified of (and, ideally, automatically logged on to) available networks, whenever you’re in range. Go even further — subscribe to Skype or Vonage and download their smartphone apps, ensuring that you’ll be able to make calls over the internet from your phone for free/cheap, while near a WiFi hotspot.
DUMP THE FEES. Then again, you can’t always wait until you pass a nearby Starbucks to start chowing down on data, which is where the roaming plans come into play. Still, paying $50 in fees for a quick look at Google Maps so you can help your taxi driver in Tbilisi get unlost is a bit extreme, even if it does smooth the way. In most every country, and in many airports, it is possible to buy or rent a local SIM card that you can slip into your smartphone, temporarily replacing the one you use here at home, giving you data, text and voice on the local network. You’ll pay what locals pay. Sounds simple, right? Sure, except that your smartphone is likely locked up tight by whatever provider you use at home, meaning that the new SIM card you just snapped up could be altogether useless.
HOW TO GET UNLOCKED. There are some exceptions — the most notable being the AT&T iPhone — but it is generally possible to unlock your smartphone; you’ll just need to talk to your provider to do it (legally and ethically, anyway). Each has their own set of conditions — T-Mobile, for example, requires that you’ve been a subscriber for at least 40 days, in good standing. If you meet your provider’s requirements, you should be squared away.
OR, JUST RENT. You’re probably wondering, why even bother — why not just rent a smartphone at the airport in my destination and forget all this swapping nonsense? You’d be right, but it should be mentioned that renting a local phone is easier in some places than others. Not all countries are that tech-savvy, for starters. Then again, there are places like the United Kingdom, where you can just buy a cheap prepaid phone from any retailer and throw it away before you go home. You won’t be able to play Angry Birds, but then again, you did only pay $20 for the thing.
SERVICE BREAKDOWN
Traveler’s best friend Droid Global 2
Plan Global Data rate plans come in a few flavors: $30/month for 75MBs in Canada and Mexico ($100 for 200 MBs); $30/month for 25MBs in the Caribbean and Europe ($100 for 70MBs). Overage is $.005/KB everywhere except Canada, which is $.002/KB. Data rates in all other countries is $.02/KB ($20.48/MB). No activation fee.
Call 800-711-8300
Traveler’s best friend HTC Touch Pro2
Plan International data roaming charges range between $.002/KB (CDMA) and $.016/KB (GSM). No activation fee.
Call 888-226-7212
Traveler’s best friend iPhone 4
Plan International data packages for use in over 100 select countries start at $24.99 for 20MBs, with overage rates between $.005-$0.0195/KB. Per-use rates are $.0195/KB ($.01 in Canada). No activation fee.
Call 800-331-0500
Traveler’s best friend BlackBerry Bold 9780
Plan WorldClass International Roaming is free to activate, and international data roaming costs $15/MB ($10/MB in Canada).
Call 800-937-8997