Foreign travel with your Business Mobiles
The press is routinely reporting, Ofcom and the networks themselves see our international call roaming charges prices quickly falling. Are there real changes on the horizon or have we heard this too often?
At the moment, financial departments of both large and small companies are looking for ways to reduce the costs of a business mobile and international roaming.
Not providing enough information to businesses and consumers is one more problem associated with using business mobile phones abroad. How much are we going to be charged? Can we use our minutes abroad? What are other ways to save money?
Let’s see what’s available on the market today.
It is possible for Oranges business customers to use the minute bundle and call UK and 28 countries, and services which are similar to this are available with 02 and T-mobile. Business World Traveller offered by Orange, will provide 25% off on roaming data and 50% off on standard voice roaming charges.
Vodafone have a similar service called ‘Passport’. When you are abroad cheaper rates are available. When you are outside the UK you pay 75p to be connected. After that you are charged your normal UK price. If you are interested in this service call 5555 with your Vodafone mobile.
o2 have what’s called ‘International Traveller Service’ which allows customers to call from Europe to the UK for £0.30p per minute. However, if you are calling from other parts of the world then the charges can vary from between £0.81p to £1.20 per minute.
T-mobile also have competitive roaming offers. T-mobile charge between £0.38p and £0.55p per minute to call the UK from Europe. Receiving calls with T-mobile have recently fallen meaning the cost is between £0.13p to £0.20p for Europe.
On certain schemes and networks it is possible to include international minutes that can be used in a certain country.
If you are regularly visiting a country and using your business mobile phone to call the UK, one option is to buy a local SIM card. You will in turn get a local phone number for the country you’re in. Some countries require that you be a registered resident to access this.
It is also possible to buy international pay as you go or prepaid sim cards at home. These may reduce your roaming charges by more than half.
Networks are competing and the market for international roaming is becoming more and more competitive. I am hopeful that the charges for worldwide roaming will continue to go down as competition increases. After all, the networks are in competition with one another which will drive prices down further.
Finally, whilst the networks are bombarded with bad press for over charging on roaming I believe they are reacting in a positive way that will benefit business mobile users in the UK.
