Purpose

Policy Statement

Applies to

Responsibilities

Guidelines

1. When booking travel arrangements ask your travel agent if they can recommend a business, at the destination airport, that rents cellular telephones. Usually, you can rent a cellular telephone by the week or month and pay as you go for the airtime.
2. Purchase a GSM phone with a Sim card for your everyday use. Chances are that that when you go to another country all you’ll need to do is have international calling enabled. Make sure that your carrier has a roaming agreement with a carrier in the country that you are traveling to otherwise the phone won’t work.
3. Rent a satellite phone. This is very expensive, but guarantee coverage anywhere in the world.
4. Purchase a cell phone from T-Mobile. They are all tri-band GSM models. The international coverage has been excellent with some minor exceptions. Unfortunately, Japan is not using the same protocols as other countries and the phone will not work there. Also be aware that most major cites are covered in China, but not all areas. Check with T-Mobile to be sure there is coverage in the areas you are going.
5. We too have found that it is sometimes cheaper to buy a local SIM card rather than pay regular calling plan rates. It depends on the country, what type of calls are expected to be made and how many.
6. For the occasional use it may not be worth getting a separate SIM in each country. You will also have to ask for in advance the SIM unlock code from the vendor. Without this code, you can not use a foreign SIM.
7. For the price of renting for not too long (around $100), you can buy a FSM 9000/1800 phone. In Asia, you can get local brand phones for $50 or so. Once you have the phone, you can buy SIM cards at the airport and stick them into the phone. This gives you a local number and a far lower rate than roaming. Inbound calls to a prepaid are very cheap for the prepaid user, since the airtime is paid by the caller (which is the other side of why it costs more to call cell phones than to call land line phones).

When making calls from a cell phone outside the US, you are using a local GSM carrier no matter what you do. “Coverage” from all US carriers is the same, unless they contract with different partners. The only thing that goes back home is the bill, not the call. On the way, the bill passes through many hands that all add a little bit, getting a “roaming” charge up to $2/minute while the local pre-paid rate is more like $.25.