Tips to avoid high bills when using your cell phone abroad

Using your cell phone while traveling abroad can be convenient but costly. Before you travel, you should check to see if your phone will work abroad and if it does what the rates are. The rates are always higher when using your cell phone abroad, often higher then roaming charges and fees.

Before you travel, contact your cell phone service provider to determine two things. One, you'll want to make sure that your phone itself is a quad band phone. Quad band phones can operate anywhere in the world. Cell phone service providers operate on one of 4 bands, so a quad band phone is ideal to have if you travel often.

Secondly, you'll want to ask if the cell phone service is available where you are traveling. Large cell phone providers often have agreements with other providers all over the world to allow their customers to use their cell phones on shared cell towers. Some companies only operate in one country or have little to no agreements or contracts with cell phone towers internationally.

If you've determined that your cell phone will function where you are traveling you'll want to check the rates and fees. Some service providers may charge roaming fees, access fees, and more. If you are using your cell phone on a shared cell tower or network you might be charged fees by the other service provider in addition to your own provider.

Almost always the per minute fee applies to any calls made while abroad, if you have a family plan or shared minutes, these are generally not used on international calls. You may pay up to a few dollars a minute depending on your provider, what towers are being used, and where you use your cell phone.

Also keep in mind that rates may change depending on the day of the week or time. This time and day pricing may be set in your home time or in the local time, so check with your provider before leaving.

Text messaging if available is generally the best way to communicate with people back home on your cell phone. Text messages are usually under 50 cents a message to send and receive internationally. So you can save a good deal of money by communicating via text message.

As for data use such as accessing the internet on your cell phone, these rates can be extremely high so you'll want to reconsider before checking your favorite website or e-mail on your cell phone while traveling.

You can avoid high bills on your cell phone while traveling by minimizing the length of time you talk on the phone. Most providers round up to the next minute, so if your phone call is at 1 minute and 1 second, you'll get charged for 2 minutes, so use up closer to 2 minutes before hanging up. If you can keep your calls at 59 seconds or less, you can avoid being charged for more minutes.
Keep your phone off when not in use to avoid incoming calls that you may accidently pick up, only to realize you may now be facing a higher cell phone bill. If at all possible as mentioned earlier, use text messaging if available as it can be cheaper and more effective when using your cell phone abroad.