Staying in Touch Abroad
We’re going to France soon. What services make it easy to stay connected to our family and friends back home? Let’s find out.
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experience while we live in France for a year
By Vincent
Since we will be leaving for France in a few short weeks, it’s getting close to when we need to cancel our cell service on our US carrier and start to investigate what we’re going to do when we arrive. While we’re abroad, it’s important that we stay in touch with family and friends—and make it easy for them to do the same.
In the US, it’s pretty straightforward—you sign off your firstborn to a major carrier and pay way too much for a cell plan with unlimited calling & texts and a decent 3GB shared data plan. Times are changing though. It’s getting easier and easier to shrug off the contracts and start going it alone.
Outside the US, it’s already like this—there are still major carriers but they typically offer rolling contract or month-to-month plans and their coverage and services are usually better. Phones aren’t tied to carriers and you can freely move between them to whomever suits your fancy. Because of this, plans are competitive and it drives prices down. This is a good thing—but it can also be intimidating to those of us who are new to that world.
If you’re only traveling for a short time, then you can probably take advantage of some of better international plans from US carriers, like T-Mobile’s Simple Choice plan. However, when you’ll be there for a long time like us, you’ll need to take extra measures.
Networks and spectrums
One of the first things you’ll discover when researching how to stay connected abroad is that you probably can’t take your current phone with you (unless you’re on your carrier’s international plan, as I mentioned above). I’m going to overly simplify the complicated mess that is the international cellular landscape. If you want to dive deeper, start here.
The first thing to wrap your head around when shopping for international phones is understanding networks and spectrums. This is crucial to understand so you know what each carrier and phone support—you must make sure they match up. You really only need to worry about two networks: GSM and LTE—GSM has been around a long time and LTE is a newer standard that works on both GSM and CDMA networks (CDMA isn’t too common outside the US).
Each network has different frequency bands (aka “spectrums” or “frequencies”) and carriers only support specific bands. Some of these bands can be called different things—for example 3G, 4G and 4G LTE are just different parts of the spectrum. It’s a mess.
Here’s an example using France, since that’s what I investigated.
In France, there are four carriers: Orange, SFR, Bouygues Télécom and Free Mobile. Free Mobile is the smallest network. For 4G LTE, these are the bands or spectrums they operate on:
- SFR: 800/2600Mhz
- Orange: 800/2600Mhz
- BT: 800/1800/2600Mhz
- Free Mobile: 2600Mhz
Those numbers represent the spectrum the carrier can support. As you can see, it’s not so bad—this means if you want 4G LTE service from Orange, your phone just needs to support LTE 800 or 2600 (typically phones support a combination of spectrums). Here is a useful coverage map of GSM/4G. They’ve split it out into GSM, 3G, and 4G which is a nice way to think about it.
Finding the right phone
The next thing you’ll need is a phone that can support GSM/LTE. Typically this means you need an international unlocked phone. Outside the US, all carriers use SIM cards that you plug into your phone. In the US, AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM and therefore also use SIM cards, so you can probably have your phone unlocked if you contact them and ask nicely. If you’re on Verizon, your phone might still be using the CDMA network which does not use SIM cards but if you’re able to use Verizon 4G LTE, you probably do have a SIM card (like my current Verizon phone)—you should contact Verizon and ask if you don’t know how to check yourself.
Otherwise if you’re itching for an upgrade and want to ditch your current phone, you can buy an unlocked one online. Buyer beware—oftentimes phones will say they are a certain type but the sellers could sell something different, it’s best to only buy from sellers with high ratings or trusted sources and inspect all the user reviews for any suspicious practices.
In my case, my aged once-replaced HTC 8X was due for an upgrade and I wanted to stick with the Windows Phone platform (to Céleste’s chagrin) so I went ahead and bought a Nokia Lumia 1020 unlocked GSM phone off Amazon. You never quite know what you’ll get but I lucked out—it had a German product code. Again, research pays off—the global variant of the 1020 (RM-875) supports all four GSM bands (“Quad Band”) and all of the LTE bands used in France. You can use GSMArena to find the specifications for the phone you’re eyeing.
My decision was also influenced by the fact the 1020 has an excellent camera for when I’m working and Céleste is outside bumming around town; it’s easy for her to take pictures and it’s all integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem we already use. Furthermore, in an effort to think long-term, I will be able to use the 1020 once I get back. Win, win, win!
Update (12/15/14): Well, that’s just great. My 1020 up and died and is now an expensive paperweight. I think there’s a firmware or hardware issue that messes the phone up if you let it die (which I did, since it wasn’t my primary phone yet). Once dead, the battery doesn’t have enough charge to start up again. We only have a week left before we leave, so I went ahead and bought a Moto G 4G LTE Android phone (1st gen). If I can’t get the Nokia up before I leave, we’ll go with the Android. Besides the camera, it’s a well-reviewed device and has the added benefit of being Google Hangouts friendly (see below for why that’s good).
Finding a local carrier
Now that you have a phone, you’ll need to sign up with a carrier to use it once you arrive. This usually just means finding a good carrier plan. There are a couple options:
- Buy a SIM card from a carrier or reseller and get it before you arrive
- Buy a local SIM card once you arrive
Option 1 works well for short trips—you can order a SIM card and ship it to your US address. This is usually a bit more expensive though since it goes through resellers. For example, Telestial sells International SIMs which can be a bit pricey.
Since option 1 really isn’t feasible for long-term usage, we are going with option 2—find a local SIM carrier. There’s a great wiki on pre-paid data SIM providers for France and it provides an excellent overview of the local carrier landscape. For example, while Free Mobile has 4G LTE, it’s only a small coverage area and falls back to Orange’s 3G network when it can’t connect.
A couple of the providers might ship to international addresses but it would be just as easy to pick up a SIM at a local store or in the airport. Most of them also take foreign cards, which is a plus.
I haven’t decided which provider to go with but since our apartment is lined up, I can just ship the SIM card there and it’ll be ready when we arrive.
Staying in contact with the US
Now that you have a new phone and are rocking 4G LTE in France, how will your friends & family contact you? Unless they have an international plan, you might be effectively cut-off from them since they won’t want to be charged up the kazoo (sure, they’ll say they love you—but you’ll know who really does pretty quick).
If your new local carrier offers it, it might be free to call US numbers with your new phone—calling someone in the US from international should only use up their minutes, the recipient shouldn’t be charged long-distance (see Verizon’s International Calling FAQ). But they will be charged if they call you, unless they have an appropriate calling plan.
And what about texts? How will you be able to receive SMS messages from services you use—like your bank, social sites, deal sites, or security confirmations (see Two-Factor Authentication)? Most of them will only send texts to domestic numbers—boo!
Rather than playing the “what if” game with international calling, you can take advantage of two awesome services and make your (and your friends’) life easier!
Getting a Skype Number for domestic calls
One way to avoid calling plans is to avoid the cellular network altogether and just use The Internet. Now that you have a fancy 4G LTE-compatible smartphone hooked up to a fast network, let’s put those gigabytes to work.
If you’re not using Skype, now would be a good time to start. It’s easy to use, installs on virtually every device, and offers free unlimited Skype-to-Skype calling and low rates for calling cell or landline phones. Unlimited calls to US & Canada is only $3/month or just pay-as-you-go with Skype Credits. Just install and configure Skype on your phone to receive calls! Anytime someone calls you via Skype you can answer on your phone and use your data plan instead of your cellular network.
But what about your friends and family? Maybe not all of them use Skype or can handle signing in and initiating that call. No fear—you can just purchase a Skype Number. A Skype Number is a virtual phone number that you can buy that can be set to your local area code of where you live (or where most people you know live). I got mine for $30 for 12 months since I had a free Premium subscription and it provided a discount. Unfortunately, Skype doesn’t offer porting your current number but it’s a small price to pay—especially considering the alternatives. This is awesome for your loved ones because it means they pay normal domestic rates to call you.
But wait!
Once you have your Skype number, keep it to yourself. Here’s why.
I noticed you didn’t say call and text…
Very astute of you. Yes, unfortunately Skype cannot receive texts—only calls. You can send texts but no one can reply to you. Super useful!
What can we do about that?
Set up Google Voice to handle texts and forward calls to Skype
You may not know that Google offers a service called Voice that can forward calls and handle voice mail—but it’s also really good at handling texts! It will even integrate with Google Hangouts for the web and Android, if you’re into that.
Like a Skype Number, Google Voice assigns you a Google Voice Number which is free and can also be set to a local area code. So why can’t I just use Voice and forego Skype? Oh, if only it were that easy. Unfortunately, Voice is not a phone carrier (or a VOIP service, really) so they don’t do anything except store messages and forward calls and they do not forward to international numbers. Maybe in the future Skype will just handle texts so we don’t even need to go through this!
Don’t fret though. Since your Skype Number is domestic you can add it as a phone for Google Voice. Let me repeat that: you can forward calls from Google Voice directly to your Skype Number. What?! Again, because Skype can’t receive texts we’ll let Google Voice take care of that!
Note: Sending calls from Skype will still show your Skype Number. You can fix that by setting up Skype’s Caller ID feature and use your Google Voice number so it will appear to whomever you call. After that takes effect, your Skype Number is effectively “hidden” from your friends and family. Keep it secret, keep it safe, right?
Once you have your Google Voice set up to forward to Skype, you only need to give your friends and family, your Voice number—that’s one number—and they’ll be able to text you normally and you can then respond on the web or your phone. You can also use it to receive SMS from other services, like you usually would. You can set Voice to forward text messages to your email—this is what I did since I don’t want to continuously check Voice on my phone, it’s already set up with my Gmail account. If you have an Android, set it to use Hangouts (please Google release a Hangouts app for Windows!).
You could forego texting altogether and skip this step if you prefer and have your friends use the myriad of messenger services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, iMessage, Skype, etc.—that’s fine but with Google Voice now you’re covered for every case.
A cornucopia of connectivity
So there you have it, you’ve successfully set up a domestic US number that can send and receive calls and text messages anywhere in the world—pretty neat, huh?
Let’s run through this approach one last time:
- Bought a good unlocked GSM smartphone—$200–300
- Signed up with a local carrier with a good data plan—$30/mo
- Signed up for a Skype Number—$30 for 12 months
- Signed up for a Google Voice Number—FREE
- (optional) Signed up for US & Canada Skype plan—$3/mo
This offers us the following benefits:
- Good affordable local data and cell coverage
- International number people can call or we can call from in emergencies
- Ability to call local numbers without any issues
- Single domestic US number that handles texts via Google Voice and calls via Skype
- Easy for your friends and family, they just need to know a single number
This is the approach we are taking in preparation for our trip to France so we’ll see how it pans out (and I’ll be sure to update this with my impressions after using it for awhile). People should be able contact us without worrying about being charged extra and we can live it up on France’s 4G LTE network. If we go with Free Mobile, we’ll even have the benefit of calling home for free or during an emergency.
A word on security
The security-conscious among you may have noted that I set my Google Voice number to forward texts to my email. I have two-factor authentication enabled for almost every account that supports it so what does this mean if I receive security codes via text? Well, it means if I have to login to my Gmail (or any Google app) on a new device, I will receive a security code via text… which then forwards to my email… which I can’t access because I’m trying to login!
The solution is to use an authenticator app on your phone and not use SMS to send security codes. An authenticator app is registered to your account and will generate the security codes for you so you don’t need to receive them via text. This is supported by most major providers, I have it set up with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and GitHub (so far)—that encapsulates pretty much all my critical accounts. The added benefit is this means an attacker would need physical access to your unlocked device (because you have a PIN, right?) to login to these accounts—normally SMS would be fine but since we’re forwarding, it ceases to be useful.
Since you may be switching phones when you move abroad be sure to unregister your old phone and register your new phone with the provider, otherwise you’ll run into complications.
The last thing to do is to back-up your recovery codes—again, most providers allow you to print out your recovery codes. These can be used to restore your account if you can’t log in using any other method.
Additional thoughts
We don’t leave until the end of December, so I’ve been testing this setup in the US for a little while since my Google Voice does actually forward to my Verizon number and it works real nicely. Once we cancel our Verizon account it should be pretty seamless to transition to the new way.
What would be interesting to test is the Port Number feature in Google Voice. In theory, I should be able to port my existing US number and use it as my Google Voice number—and still forward Voice to Skype. However, since I’m actively in need of my Verizon account, I can’t actually test this yet. What I might do is start the process a week before we leave and give my family members my Voice number in case it doesn’t switch over in time. Once it is I can cancel my Verizon service. Then once the new local carrier is activated, I should just start receiving calls and texts automagically.
Lastly, I did look into Vonage and it looked pretty tempting—the Vonage World plan is $28/month for unlimited calls to the US with the ability to port my number. Here’s the thing though: it can’t receive texts and they only have apps for iOS and Android. Texts could be mitigated the same way with Voice but not being able to receive calls when we’re out and about is less than ideal. It’s also comparatively expensive because we’d still have to get the local carrier plan in order to use data.
