International roaming is costing Australians big money, but it’s easy to avoid bill shock with these simple tips

Vodafone has commissioned a bit of research about international roaming, and it reached some unsurprising conclusions; international roaming is still expensive, people use it too much without doing simple things to save costs, and people are taking extreme steps to avoid bill shock.

The research conducted by YouGov Galaxy revealed that Australians have spent around $1.4bn in international roaming fees. With that figure, it’s no surprise that 63% of mobile users are concerned about their mobile costs while overseas, and almost 1.5 million Aussies have left their smartphone at home when they go overseas to avoid nasty bills.

There’s some other interesting findings too:

• 5  million Aussies (41% of smartphone owners) have been hit with international roaming fees.
• Gen X (51%) and Millennials (45%) are much more likely to have been charged fees than Baby Boomers (29%)
• The average international roaming fee per person is $290, which equates to more than $1.4 billion in fees.
• Around 250,000 Aussies claim to have paid more than $1,000 in international roaming fees.

What options are there?

These findings are kind of surprising, because each of the three major Australian carriers offers roaming packages which can significantly cut the cost of taking your mobile overseas. Vodafone spruiks its Red Roaming service – which for $5 a day allows customers to use their call, SMS and data inclusions overseas without any other restriction – but of course you’d expect they would.

Telstra offers an International Day Pass for $10 a day for unlimited calls and SMS, and 200MB data per day which – from personal experience – would suit me just fine for probably 75% of the days I spend overseas. Optus offers a similarly priced Travel Pack for $10 a day, but it only includes 100MB per day.

Regardless of which of these options you choose, I wouldn’t describe any of them especially cheap. Even a modest trip overseas can cost $35 or more on Vodafone, and that same trip would be at least $70 on Telstra or Optus.

There’s another catch. Vodafone’s roaming data – which relatively cheap – is routed to the Internet via Australia. In many countries, this can be very slow, and better yet, some countries only offer 3G roaming which can be even slower. Even in countries where Vodafone has a presence, roaming isn’t necessarily available. It’s a good offering, but it’s not a panacea.

What about something cheaper?

Almost always, you will be better off buying a SIM card and a prepaid service locally when travelling. Not only are these almost always cheaper than Australian equivalents, but they’re almost always faster than using roaming data anyway.

For Mobile World each year, we often buy a local Orange SIM for €15 which will easily last us the duration of the conference. In France recently, that same price got us a SIM on the local major carrier which offered exceptional speed for the entire trip.

Yes, buying a local SIM means you’re often without your Australian mobile number, but there’s ways around this, too:

• If you’ve got an old phone, stick your Australian SIM in that, turn off data and roaming, and just use it to receive emergency calls / SMS when overseas. On most carriers, this won’t cost you much of anything.
• If you’ve got a dual SIM phone, buy a SIM at your destination and stick that in your phone, and use it for data needs.
• WhatsApp, Telegram, and many other messaging apps which use your mobile number aren’t tied to your local SIM – you can use these services with any SIM, provided you can receive a verification code (easy enough without enabling roaming data).

While Vodafone’s Red Roaming deal is a great offer, it’s far from being the only or most affordable way to access data overseas.

Vodafone’s research is a timely reminder that you should:

1. Contact your telco before you go to check what options you have for roaming overseas.
2. Pre plan – either:
   1. Purchase roaming packs or if you are a Vodafone post-paid customer, take advantage of $5 Roaming and add this cost to your holiday budget so that you don’t any nasty surprises.
   2. Do some research on local mobile costs at your destination, and save some money.
3. Use your smartphone or telco provider app to track your data usage.
4. Be aware of apps such as maps that use location services which are heavy on data use. If you’re using Google Maps, switch on WiFi before you go and download some offline maps.
5. Use trusted Wi-Fi such as the network at your accommodation to conserve your data. In most tourist destinations, WiFi is literally everywhere and often free.