Dear Student,
Communicating with family, friends, credit card companies, online shopping sites, and your favorite phone sex service (just checking to be sure you’re paying attention) back home will require some set-up in advance of your move if you want to save money in the long run. Your international-communications expense living overseas can be a significant part of your budget… or a negligible one, depending how effectively you organize things.
First, if you’re still on a contract, ditch it. Even if you intend to return home often, it’ll be cheaper to switch to a pay-as-you-go phone plan when you’re “back home.” Assuming you’re on a contract now, this could take some planning to make sure you don’t pay penalties for opting out early.
Your new pay-as-you-go phone will not only save you money (maybe a lot of money) compared with the cost of your current cell phone contract, but it has another benefit, as well. You should be able to use that same phone in your new country(ies) of residence simply by switching out the SIM card.
Unlike in much of the world, a cell phone you buy on contract in the United States is typically locked, meaning you can use the phone only with the service provider who sold it to you. A few years back, though, a consumer-protection law was passed forcing service providers to unlock phones on request. If you’re on a contract, you might have to wait until expires to exit and unlock the phone without penalty. However, if you buy a pay-as-you-go phone in the States, it comes pre-unlocked, meaning you can change the SIM card easily.
The point is, no matter what kind of phone you currently own—smartphone, burner phone, or anything in between—you can make it work for you in your new home if you want to.
If you want to buy a new one on arrival, I recommend researching typical prices in your new home before you commit. Most electronics are cheaper in the United States no matter what the item is or what country you’re moving to… this is a generalization, of course, but it’s mostly accurate. So it likely won’t make sense, for example, to wait to buy the new iPhone anywhere but the States and you should know and plan for that before leaving.
Whether you’re getting a new phone or using your old U.S. model, SIM cards are your ticket to mobile freedom. You can buy a SIM on its own easily in nearly every country in the world, often over the counter in the airport newsagent, in a gas station, or, worst case, in a local telephone service provider’s store. Only a few countries make this more difficult—Italy, for example, makes it quite an ordeal to buy a SIM.
You can invest in a library of SIMs (as we have done), one for each of the countries where you spend time. This way, your one phone works anywhere you need it to work.
We have SIM cards for Panama, the United States, Colombia, and France, the four countries where we currently spend time regularly. When we arrive in one of the other countries, we simply switch the SIM card, usually in the airport while we’re waiting for our luggage to be delivered.
The bigger telecommunication complication when you move overseas is staying in touch with people back home. Maybe you’ll be able to dial internationally with your pay-as-you-go cell phone, but, if you have this capability at all, it will come at a cost. Probably you won’t have a local landline in your new country of residence, as they are increasingly unnecessary and an added expense that isn’t really worth it. Again, though, if you do have a landline, the cost of making international calls from it will be expensive.
The solution is to set up some kind of VOIP (voice over internet protocol) service. In the United States, the big carrier is Vonage, but there are at least a dozen other similar services. In addition to the Vonage-type service (whereby you get an internet modem that you plug into your phone), systems are also available that work from your computer, tablet, or smartphone.
The Vonage-type service is generally more convenient if you will be staying put, more or less, in one place. You plug the modem box provided for you into your internet connection in your house, and then you plug a regular phone into the modem box. You can then call anyone in the United States just as you do now, as though you were dialing long distance from elsewhere in the country. You’d dial 1, the area code, and then the number.
Because the modem is programmed with a U.S. number (this is your new phone number, the one you’ll give out for people to use to call you; in fact, you can even port your current number to your new service if you want, so your “U.S.” number won’t change after you’ve moved overseas), you don’t pay international rates.
Depending on the plan you sign up for, you can even get unlimited calls to Europe and elsewhere.
The main caveat with these services is that you have to arrange for them in advance of your move, as you must place an order for the modem box in time for it to be delivered to you before you depart for your new life. These outfits don’t ship overseas.
Options to a Vonage-type system include Skype and Magic Jack. Skype started as a computer-based program you could use to call other Skype users… for free. That part of the service still exists, but you can now also make outbound calls to regular telephone numbers. You can get a Skype-In number, on which people can call you from a normal phone line. And you can even now get a Skype phone, for use independent from your computer; you just plug the Skype phone into your internet connection (in the way you might plug a Vonage modem box into your internet connection). Download the Skype app to your tablet and/or smartphone and call, facetime, or message folks even as you’re away from home—as long as you’ve got data or a Wi-Fi connection, the ability to stay in touch is literally at your fingertips.
Magic Jack also uses your computer, but it works with a regular phone. You plug Magic Jack into a USB port on your computer and then plug the phone into Magic Jack. Magic Jack is supposed to be portable, but you have to carry around a regular phone with you to use with it. I don’t find that super-portable.
You can use Skype directly out of your laptop, using your computer’s microphone and speakers, but that can make for difficult conversations. It’s better to use a headset with a built-in microphone. You can also get a phone to plug into your laptop’s USB port; again, though, this means something else to tote around in your computer bag.
The cost of these services varies depending on the plan you sign up for… or don’t. To call out with Skype, you don’t need a plan. This works like a pay-as-you-go cell phone; you simply charge your account (online, using a credit or debit card) whenever it gets low. But whether you sign up for a plan or pay as you go with Skype, your telephone expense will be a fraction what it would be were you to make international calls from your new country the old-fashioned way.
For reference, here is a website that compares VOIP services: http://www.voipreview.org/.
This is a marketing site, so it features services that earn it a referral fee and doesn’t include Vonage (www.vonage.com). Skype and Magic Jack are easy to find: www.skype.com and www.magicjack.com.