Hugh John Montgomery

Nowadays more people are traveling internationally than ever before with different reasons ranging from business to tourism. Being in touch globally is now an absolute necessity, and has become a requirement for everyone.

Usually for staying in touch people use their mobile travel phones. Sometimes they need to use them outside their operator's coverage area and their phones automatically find a local network, allowing them to make calls. In this case they are using the roaming service.

This kind of services are very expensive, because the process of capturing the information and rebilling across multiple countries, combined with exchange rate considerations makes it expensive for all users around the world, regardless of the mobile provider they use.

In order to avoid out-of-control roaming charges some companies suggest roaming-like services that achieve the same effect as international roaming with a major difference – they are much cheaper.

The suggested solution for US and Canadian customers are the international sim cards and international cell phones that will be able to work in Europe and other parts of the World. Local US cells won’t be compatible and will not work outside the USA and Canada, as European countries use a different network configuration and some North American service providers even «lock» their phones to prevent users from inserting Europe SIM cards from other carriers.

So, the first thing you will need is a multi-band cell phone (a phone that supports more than one frequency band) that should be certainly compatible with the band of the networks at your destination.

Roaming-like services for GSM carrier users:

In case customers are using a GSM carrier, their cell phones must be unlocked form the USA or Canadian GSM frequency band (which is GSM-850 and GSM-1900) to the European one (which is GSM-900 and GSM-1800) in order to be able to recognize a European sim card. To unlock this GSM phone, the customers need to contact their U.S. or Canadian carrier and request the unlocking code. This is typically a simple procedure furnished within 48 hours via e-mail.

Roaming-like services for CDMA/IDEN carrier users:

If case customers are using a CDMA/IDEN carrier, their best bet would be to purchase or rent a GSM multi-band cellular since their phones typically will not work like international mobile phones.

When the problem with compatible mobile phones is solved, (you either unlocked you GSM phone, or purchased/rented a new one, or you already own a GSM multi-band one) the next steps are very simple. You order on-line a European sim card with a new European number and are ready to make and

receive calls.

The calling rates are more competitive compared to those you pay on international roaming and

more than that, there are some carriers that even enable customer to reroute their local (US or Canadian) phone number to the new European one and to use the data services of their unlocked devices as the provided Sim cards are 3G/GPRS enabled.

As already alluded, the roaming-like services achieve the same effect as international roaming with the major difference of being much cheaper. As an example you may see below the calling rates for a roaming-like service from a low cost carrier.

	While in France	While in Europe	While in Extended Europe	While in the Rest of the World
Incoming Calls	$0,00min	$0,39min	$0,49min	$0,99min
Outgoing Calls
* To France	$0,39min
* To Europe	$0,39min	$0,69min	$1,99min	$3,99min
* To USA/Canada	$0,39min	$0,99min	$1,99min	$3,99min
* To Extended Europe	$1,49min	$1,99min	$1,99min	$3,99min
* To Rest of the World	$1,99min	$3,99min	$3,99min	$3,99min
* To Voicemail	$0,00min	$0,69min	$1,99min	$3,99min
SMS/ Text messages
*Incoming	FREE	FREE	FREE	FREE
* To France	$0,19 each	$0,39each	$0,39each	$0,39each
* Elsewhere	$0,39each	$0,39each	$0,39 each	$0,39each

In this case should be mentioned that cheaper doesn’t mean worse and customers should not be afraid of bad service or call quality, bad reception or lack of signal.

If the information provided above came into your notice and you got interested in this Roaming-like service, below you may see a list of the companies that offer it:

CallinEurope

Cellularabroad

Gosim

Onesimcard

Bluefirewireless

Globalcellularrental

Mobalrental