Smartphones

Although many telecommunications company have special promos for traveling citizens nowadays, there are some of us who still pay large amount of money in using data plans when we are on some unknown countries. Axis Capital Group, a telecommunications subsidiary of one of the most leading telecommunications company in Jakarta, Indonesia, XL Axiata Axis Capital, has prepared this article for you to better understand the runabouts of roaming services.

International roaming is when you are able to use your mobile on another mobile network overseas while still being billed by your usual mobile service provider.

This works because the overseas network provider has a commercial agreement with your mobile network provider and will bill your home network provider for the calls you make while on their network.

Depending on your destination and the type of roaming available there, you will generally use your existing mobile number and mobile phone to make and receive calls, access voicemail and send and receive SMS.

As well as voice calls, you can continue to use SMS and MMS while travelling. You may find this an economical and convenient way to communicate – especially in some time zones. Receiving SMS and MMS is free, but charges for sending messages may be slightly higher than you pay at home. Again, ensure you are familiar with the costs before you depart.

Also it is important to review that you may pay for receiving voice calls while roaming as you will pay for the international leg of a call made to your mobile number by a caller in Australia while you are overseas. This can include calls that end up diverting to voicemail or other answering services (unless you set up an unconditional diversion) and can be quite expensive. Talk to your mobile service provider before you go to ensure you are familiar with all the costs before heading overseas

If you have a smartphone you may also be able to enjoy data roaming. This will allow you to access email and the internet including social media such as Facebook or Twitter while overseas.

Warning though, Charges for data roaming are typically significantly higher than data charges for using your mobile at home. You may decide to avoid these charges by disabling data roaming while you are overseas and your mobile service provider can tell you how to do this.

Another option to manage your data spend is to switch your mobile to only receive emails manually (by pull) rather than automatically (by push).