How to Manage International Phone Numbers and SIM Cards without Breaking the Bank
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One of the biggest pains of traveling long-term or moving abroad is figuring out what to do with your phone plan. Even though mobile carriers may be international companies, borders still present a very real paywall for the way we communicate. Hopping around wi-fi hotspots is restrictive and doesn’t quite keep your phone “portable.” The cheapest way to stay connected abroad isn’t easy or convenient.
Let me tell you a bit about my experiences managing phone challenges abroad before providing some recommendations to help you organize your personal communication while you’re abroad.
My Experience Dealing with International Phone Numbers and SIM Cards Abroad
When I moved to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina for school back in 2010, I was eager to hit the ground running. I was there to finish a few classes during study abroad and I had pre-arranged with my cell carrier to suspend service for the duration of my visit. On my first day there, my local contact took me to a phone store and got me a little prepaid brick phone for $25 total.
Once the study abroad finished, I kept that phone. The next time I moved abroad in 2012 I went to Prague, Czech Republic and that same cheap little phone came in handy again as all I needed to do was buy a SIM card at the airport.
The technology options that have been developed in the intervening decade have made communicating when you go abroad easier than ever before. In this post, I will lay out some of the options available to you today to help you keep in touch with the people around you wherever you are and your loved ones back home.
Keeping Your Original Phone Number When Moving Abroad
If you plan to cancel your mobile phone contract before moving abroad, most carriers will require you to give up your number. If you would rather keep your number in case you might return to your home country in the future, call forwarding services such as Google Voice will allow you to keep and continue to use your existing home telephone number. This way, calls, texts, and voicemails from friends and relatives to your home phone will be diverted to the virtual telephone service which you will be able to check from any of your devices. Meanwhile, you will be able to make outgoing calls to any country in the world for $0.01 USD per minute.
Another perk of using a virtual telephone service is using it as a secondary phone number. Many apps, companies, wi-fi-hotspots, and others around the world require a phone number for any product registration, and hidden deep in the terms and conditions is a clause that states how the company will sell your phone number. Meanwhile, as robocalls continue to be a big hassle, it’s a nice way to screen any calls that aren’t personal and keep the mobile phone number you use abroad unburdened by unwanted calls.
Best of all, using a call forwarding service will come in handy as you travel from country to country. A steady phone number that can help friends, relatives, and business associates in touch with you can be an incredible stabilizing factor in your life. These services can also free you from expensive fees from thousands of mobile carriers at each border crossing.
Now that we have discussed how you can maintain your original phone number when you go abroad, let’s talk about what you should do when you first arrive in a country and need to communicate before signing a long-term contract.
Getting Your First SIM Card
Before we get into buying SIM cards when you’re abroad, here are a few things to confirm before taking your phone with you on your trip. First, you must make sure that your phone is not locked to your original career in your home country before taking it abroad. If you purchased the phone from the telecom provider with a discounted monthly contract in exchange for signing up for a few years of service and those years have not passed yet, then your phone will likely still be locked to that carrier and you may need to request for it to be unlocked, which will usually take a few weeks of time and may require an additional payment to the carrier as well. Next, you should also confirm that the phone model you own can work with carriers in the country you want to move to. Most newer models will not have any issues with this, but older models may only work with the phone networks in certain countries.
Once you have confirmed both of those points and taken the phone with you to your first destination, buying a prepaid SIM card from a local carrier is the easiest and most straightforward way to get local phone call minutes and data plans. SIM cards are usually available for purchase at international airports either before or after exiting the arrivals area. They can also be found in phone shops or convenience stores in the center of a city. While they are easily available in cities, they are much harder to come by in rural areas where cell service may be spotty itself. Buying prepaid cell service with a SIM card makes sense for the short term, but it can quickly become expensive in the long run if you have to top it up with additional credit every few weeks.
One of the challenges you may face as a traveler switching between countries frequently is that each country you enter may require a local SIM card. While SIM cards from countries within the European Union work in almost every country in the region, SIM cards from most countries only work within the borders of the country or may charge insane fees for international calls and data roaming.
Rather than buying a new SIM card at each border crossing and worrying about losing SIM cards that you are trying to hold on to, a better and more convenient option is to use an electronic SIM (eSIM) card service such as Airalo. Forgoing the physical cards themselves, Airalo instead utilizes an easy-to-use web interface. This eliminates the need to find a phone provider store and instead buy prepaid cell service directly from an app.
While this is a great short-term solution, it is much more cost-effective to sign up for a long-term contract with a local telecom provider. If you’re planning to live somewhere for more than a few months, you don’t want to have to think about refilling your phone minutes and data. In the next section, we will look at how you can find a telecom provider in your new country.
Signing Long-Term Contracts for Phone and Telecom Services Abroad
Once you’re all settled in, it’s time to work out a long-term phone service plan. Prices can vary widely depending on the country you’re in and across the competitive major telecom providers and resellers. All major telecom companies around the world have customer representatives that speak English, but some may be harder to come by than others. Ask other foreigners you meet on-the-ground as well as in Facebook groups for expats in your country or city about which cell service providers they recommend.
Once you’ve decided on a provider, start to look for service bundles that add a package of services including TV, home internet, and phone landlines. This is an easy way to get TV or internet service that otherwise may be very difficult to come by. See our article on the pain of getting the internet in Germany to better understand some of the pitfalls you may face when trying to keep your Internet connected abroad. Rather than just focusing on the total price, the quality of English-speaking customer service and the time it takes until you can get the Internet up and running at your apartment will need to be the deciding factors in your selection of a telecom provider. The good news is that once you’re all done signing the contract and getting the service set up, it’ll be a big to-do item to mark off your list and a huge weight off your shoulders.
Tell Your Story!
Have you had any crazy experiences dealing with SIM cards abroad? Want to leave some tips for fellow travelers? Leave a comment on this post below. If you’d like to share your story about travel struggles and accomplishments, write it up and get it featured on our blog!
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Originally published at https://expatempire.com on January 20, 2021.
