Tips to help you reduce your international roaming charges for your smartphone/tablet

The use of Smartphone’s and tablets (devices) has become ingrained in our everyday lives for both business and personal use.

In fact a recent survey in the USA, asked the question – “What would you rather give up for a week for your mobile phone”.

When you get results of what people would give up to keep their mobile phone by their side for a week that includes 70% chocolate, 55% caffeine and 33% sex, then you know that we have become a society addicted to our Smartphone’s.

In Australia we enjoy having access to mobile data which is normally included in many mobile voice plans. This in turn allows us to grab the information that we want from our apps, the internet or email anywhere, anytime (as long as you are in coverage)

When roaming overseas however, there is an additional charge for using mobile data that is not included in your Australian mobile data plan. In many instances, this can result in receiving bill shock at the cost when you return from travelling overseas. Bill shock has become an industry term for receiving one hell of a shock when you see how much your mobile bill is. This was a common occurrence in the early days of smartphone purchases, where customers neglected to add the appropriate data plan for their smartphone. This was mainly due to poor communication and education.

Even though many people believe they have not knowingly accessed data on their handsets, smartphone and tablet apps may automatically initiate data sessions without your knowledge. For example, iPhone, iPads, Android and Blackberry’s, are capable of automatically connecting to the internet for application and email updates, which is what these devices are designed to do. These devices will run sessions in the background, even in sleep mode or while on voice calls, if not manually disconnected by you. This can result in sessions showing at times you may not have been actively using the device to access the internet. These initiated sessions will incur international roaming charges.

Some Smartphone’s like Blackberry compress the data you access, reducing the data usage and also your bills. All other Smartphone’s and tablets do not.

Now, depending on the carrier and country, every time your device initiates a data session you are charged for data roaming. You could also be charged a call connection fee. Similarly, every time your device is handed over to another mobile tower, you could be charged a call connection fee. This often occurs even if you are stationary due to capacity of the tower, signal strength and load balancing to ensure continued access to the mobile network.

Did you know that all Smartphone’s and tablets have the Mobile data roaming function turned off as a factory setting? The only way to activate the ability to access mobile data whilst roaming overseas on a mobile network is for you to manually go into settings, manually choose the cellular data tab and then manually change the Data roaming setting from “Off” to “On”

Once you have done this, the onus is back on you to ensure that you manage the connection so that your device does not access data without your knowledge.

So what can you do to help minimise the cost for roaming overseas with your lifeline (your smartphone or tablet).

Attached are some simple tips that you may find handy to reduce your data roaming bills.

1.       If you don’t need mobile data access:

The best option here is to contact your mobile phone carrier and ask them to barr mobile data roaming. You can still have voice roaming turn on, without the need to have the mobile data roaming turned on. Just to be on the safe side, also make sure the mobile data roaming function is definitely turned “off” on your device.

2.       If you only need sporadic access to mobile data:

Again, the best option here is to contact your mobile phone carrier and ask them to barr mobile data roaming. Then have a look at the app store for your device and look for Wi-Fi finder apps. Many of these apps allow you to download and store a database of free and paid Wi-Fi hotspots around the globe. This means that you can access the data you want such as emails from a location that provides you a free service (such as a cafés, McDonalds’, Star Bucks etc) Many businesses are using the lure of Free Wi-Fi so that you may be tempted to purchase their wares whilst you are doing your thing. This is often one of the cheapest ways to access data. It is best to ensure that you download and test these apps before travelling overseas to determine which one suits you best. Also remember to use Wi-Fi; you need to turn your Wi-Fi on. When not using Wi-Fi, turn the function off to save battery power.

Mobile App stores are growing daily and can offer inventive ways to minimise or manage your data usage. So in addition to Wi-Fi solutions, have a look at apps such as Onavo that compresses your data traffic to reduce your usage and your data roaming costs.

3.       You need regular access to mobile data; for example emails:

First, ensure that you contact your mobile carrier to activate mobile data roaming for your service. To help reduce the costs, try to utilise the advice of tip number 2 as often as possible. If you need access there and then and don’t have the time to search for a Wi-Fi hotspot, then , on your device, turn the option for mobile data roaming to “On”, access your data and when completed immediately turn the setting back to “Off”

4.       You absolutely, positively need access to mobile data or face the possibility of the course of history changing forever!!!

You know who you are. If you can’t live without accessing apps and emails when travelling, then there are two options to consider:

a.       Purchase a local pre-paid sim card from a local carrier in the country that you are visiting. As the data is charged at the local rate, this can save you an enormous amount of money. If you are travelling to multiple countries for short periods of time and this option is impracticable, then consider option b.

b.      There are a number of companies now offering the ability to purchase a pre-paid sim for international roaming to any country. Companies such as GoSim provides an International network that will save you up to 85% on your mobile phone call charges whilst abroad.

In both cases, your mobile number will change, however with the GoSim option, your credit never expires, so you can have the same number for international roaming every time go travel (you will have 2 sim cards, your Australian sim and International roaming sim). You can set up an auto-recharge option or if you want to manage your costs logon to their website and purchase another airtime pack. These options allow you to manage the costs of your mobile data so that you can make an informed decision about how much you are willing to spend.

A final option is to purchase a tablet and use it for all your data access (emails, apps, calendar, maps etc) with a local sim card or a pre-paid international sim (as suggested above). This way you can barr International data roamingon your smartphone, however still use it for voice calls and use the tablet for business and persal data use at local or heavily reduced rates.

These tips are purely to assist in providing some education about ways in which you can minimise the possibility of bill shock the next time you travel overseas.

In every case, it is highly recommended to NEVER download apps whilst you are travelling. What is a free app from the app store could cost you hundreds of dollars downloading it on an international carriers network.

Are you considering a Bring you own device (BYOD) policy for your business?

As the consumerisation of IT continues to affect companies across all types of industries, more and more companies are contemplating a BYOD, or “Bring Your Own Device” policy.

In Australia, 46% of the population now own a Smartphone, up from 36% in 2010 which is expected to reach 60% in the next 12 months.

Smartphones and tablets are proving to be more than a consumer phenomenon, which is resulting in the lines between work and play blurring. Consumers are also employees and businesspeople who don't want to have to carry around two separate smartphones (personal and company issued) for personal and professional use. IT departments are increasingly being approached by C-level executives looking to integrate these new technologies and extend email, contacts and other business systems to their personal device of choice.

Companies are seeing a plethora of smartphones and tablets that their employees are bringing into the business. There are many benefits to delivering a BYOD policy in your business. Companies get to keep their workforce happy and lower their costs. Employees get to choose the smartphone that is right for them, and companies get to save on expensive hardware and training costs because their employees are already comfortable using their chosen device.

On the flip side, the challenge faced by IT departments is how do they support so many different devices, with so many different operating systems and versions?

To be successful, IT departments must respond by finding a way to manage the ever changing landscape of consumer devices. However, there are fundamental differences between what IT wants and employees want, which can complicate matters.

Employees want freedom and IT wants control.

Employees want fast, simple, self-service access to their business systems from any device they choose. IT wants complete control over security, performance and user experience.

The concept of BYOD is exciting and innovative, but it comes with technical challenges and considerations.

From a business perspective, companies must consider the financial, legal, implementation and support elements of a BYOD policy.

On the technical side of BYOD, IT and security teams need to understand, plan and implement a solution that adheres to existing policies and compliance requirements. A main consideration here is how to partition personal and business data on the same device. If an employee leaves your company, how do you ensure you wipe all corporate data and access, whilst leaving the integrity of their personal data?

There are a growing number of companies now offering intelligent platforms to manage, maintain, support and secure smartphones and tablets. In Australia, the leading companies for Mobile Device Management (MDM) platforms are AirWatch and Mobile Iron.

As mentioned, BYOD is also about extending access to your corporate applications to any device. Enabling a mobile workforce increases overall productivity by allowing employees to remain connected to work even while away from the workplace. It can improve decision making processes, streamline existing work processes and improve customer satisfaction by responding quickly to clients requirements face to face.

What was once a costly an onerous task of writing applications in the code of each device language, is now a much more simpler matter of choosing the right platform for your business to build applications once and deliver it cross platform.

Again, there are a growing number of companies offering a platform approach to mobile application development. These include Pyxis Mobile, Titanium and PhoneGap.

The concept of BYOD is gaining traction quickly in many organisations overseas. In the United States, according to data from Aberdeen Group (via ZDNet), about 75% of enterprises now have some component of "bring your own device" policies in place.

Accepting and supporting multiple smartphones and tablets, extending business systems to mobile devices and planning your BYOD policy, is no longer a distant consideration for many companies, it is fast becoming inevitable.

Have you started planning your strategies?