Pained about the roaming in Spain?: Domestic carriers offer options, but heavy usage can be costly

Anyone who has traveled abroad and decided to use their cellphone to call home or check e-mail knows how shocking the total on your subsequent wireless bill can be. Short of owning an unlocked GSM device and carrying multiple SIM cards – each serving as a conduit to cheaper rates – there are a few options among the top four U.S. carriers that can reduce costs; albeit they remain relatively expensive propositions nonetheless.
For Americans traveling to Barcelona, Spain for the Mobile World Congress, each of the domestic tier-one carriers recommend different options for their customers depending on their specific needs. GSM-technology based carriers AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA Inc. make travel to Europe somewhat easier since the continent uses the same technology; however the device has to operate in the 900/1800 bands Europe has designated for GSM use.
Meanwhile, CDMA-technology based carriers Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. offer a few “global” dual-mode devices that allow customers to roam internationally on GSM networks. The No. 2 and No. 3 wireless carriers offer phones for rent that can be used short term for international use. AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA also offer pre-paid SIM cards that are typically sold without a contract, which might appeal to those CDMA customers wishing to use an unlocked GSM phone, all while avoiding new contractual obligations or rentals.
Everybody gets hit
“Everybody gets hit for the most part when they travel internationally,” Keith Mallinson, an analyst at WiseHarbor, said in an interview with RCR Wireless News.
“I’m a very long seasoned international roamer,” he said. “I’m British so I was roaming from the ’93-’94 time . I can remember spending maybe $1,000 a month in those days.”
Serious international business travelers can easily spend up to $2,000 per month, Mallinson said. While in the past most international travelers opted for GSM-based carriers for communicating abroad, their CDMA-based counterparts now offer a “respectable offering in terms of a competitive device,” he said.
Yet, costs for voice and data remain relatively high.
“You’re still going to get charged high prices for voice,” Mallinson said. “Data can be an extremely dangerous blank check kind of situation . you can be paying some extremely high prices for data roaming.”
At least 89% of telecom decision makers agree that roaming solutions are overpriced, according to a recent survey by Brightroam, a company that sells SIM cards and unlocked phones for international use.
Business travelers that participated in the survey reported that they spend an average of $693 on roaming charges per trip, with an average $274.60 spent on local calls made within the country they’re traveling in, an average $284.30 spent on calls made to countries other than the country traveled to (excluding the United States), and $134.60 spent on calls back home to the states.
More than 60% of calls made by business travelers are business related, the survey found, and more than half of all business travel takes those surveyed to Europe. Nearly half of those surveyed subscribe to GSM and CDMA domestic cellular services, Brightroam concluded, with the bulk of remaining participants subscribing exclusively with GSM-based carriers.
AT&T Mobility
“You don’t want to buy a la carte if you’re going to use it internationally,” AT&T Mobility spokesman Mark Siegel said. Assuming the person is a heavy data user, AT&T Mobility recommends to its customers that they add calling plan features for international voice calls and data.
“If you don’t . you could be in for a big surprise when you get home and you don’t want that,” Siegel said.
A $25 monthly global data plan includes 20 megabytes of data in 36 countries. Pay-per-use data runs 2 cents per kilobyte.
A $6 monthly world traveler voice plan gives users a discounted per minute rate of 99 cents. Pay-pay-use calls cost $1.29 per minute.
“An important part of planning for an international trip is deciding how you’re going to use your device,” Siegel said.
“One of the beauties of GSM . it is SIM based and it is very easy to go from device to device,” he said. The carrier also sells a $25 contract-free SIM card. However, Siegel said most cases customers are best suited by simply enabling their current handset.
T-Mobile USA
For customers with the next-largest GSM provider in the United States, the prospect is straight forward. Similar to the other carriers, customers must activate international roaming on their account. T-Mobile USA then offers data at 1.5 cents per KB or $15.36 per MB. Calls are a flat 99 cents per minute, making the T-Mobile USA the cheapest voice calls available, particularly with no monthly add-on feature.
The carrier also offers a contract-free SIM card at only $10.
Verizon Wireless
Customers at the No. 2 provider either can purchase a dual-mode device or rent a separate GSM-ready handset for $4. Calls are charged $1.29 per minute in Spain, the same locale used to compare all the carriers’ fees.
“That’s the easiest,” said Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless. “The calls that people make are routed to that number” associated with a rented device. Yet outgoing calls received back home would be from a new number.
Global smartphone owners can tack on $20 per month to include unlimited international data roaming alongside their existing $45 per month domestic feature. Pay-per-use data runs 3 cents per KB.
“(Those customers) don’t have to really subscribe to an international plan. You just have to tell us you want to go, have a CDMA/GSM phone, then you pay by the minute,” Raney said.
Sprint Nextel Corp.
Sprint Nextel customers’ options are quite similar. The carrier leases capable handsets for $45 per week, $55 for two weeks, $67 per month and $100 for three months. Calls on either a rented GSM phone or a compatible GSM/CDMA device cost $1.29 per minute and data runs 1.6 cents per KB. Customers with the Research In Motion Ltd. Blackberry 8830 can also add an unlimited international data roaming plan for $70 per month, which includes domestic use as well.
The carrier also has a selection of two GSM/iDEN handsets that don’t require customers to pay a rental charge.
Roaming still high priced
WiseHarbor’s Mallinson concludes: “They’re trying very hard to bring down roaming costs in Europe. But it’s still very highly priced.”
Indeed, late last year the European Regulators’ Group published a report on the European Commission’s roaming regulation plans.
Viviane Reding, the EU telecoms commissioner, said the report solidifies a general trend toward lower roaming prices, however there’s still much more to be done. “On the basis of the figures in the report, I remain concerned about prices for SMS and data roaming services. We will watch developments very closely and respond appropriately by the end of 2008,” she said in a prepared statement. SMS and data roaming services are not currently regulated.
The commission is also concerned that customers continue to be charged on a per-minute basis instead of the actual length of the call. The difference between billed and actual minutes appears to be around 20%, the report found.
The EU Roaming Regulation, which has been in force since last summer, requires European mobile operators to offer their customers a “Eurotariff” that sets a ceiling for per minute roaming charges at 49 euro cents for making calls and 24 euro cents for receiving calls. The Eurotariff will be reduced further in 2008 and 2009.