Travel Technology - Blackberry World Severe Call Roaming Rates

Hello everyone, I have not posted yet so please be kind if I am not doing it right. I travel internationally a lot and I am with Verizon. I have the Blackberry World phone (8830) with the international calling and data plan. My emails are free (with the plan), texts I think are about .50 but my call roaming is $1.49 per minute.

Are there any other options out there to use my phone in other countries but not rack up a $250-350 phone bill in additional call roaming charges alone?

Thank you as I really love Verizon, my phone works great in every country so far but the roaming call rates are killing me! This month my bill was $470 !

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you

I'd ask at Howard forums or one of the phone specific forums. They usually know everything about phones.

Contact verizon Global Services and ask to get the phone unlocked. They actually will unlock the GSM portion of their world phones. To do this they 1st send a email about ther terms and conditions that you need to reply to. THen they walk you through unlocking the phone with the unlock code. It would be best to get a local pre-paid sim card first.
I use the Verizon Z6C world phone, similar to yours except no crack-berry. The first thing I do is get a local pre-paid SIM whn I get into a new country put it my phone and activate. For places I have already been I just re-use my existing SIM if it is still active. If not I just get a new one easier then activating. How musch can you save quite a bit. For example in Singapore I purchased $20 (Singapore dollars $15 US) SIM card at 7-11 this lasted me a week. I called the US once or twice a day and local calls. It I tried to do the same thing with my Verizon SIM card it would have been over $150 US in charges.
Another option is to just get a prepaid GSM phone where ever you are. Also, you could get a Un-Locked GSM phone off EBAYcheaply and then just use local SIM cards, this is what I did prior to getting the Z6C. The good thing about Verizon is the Network until you go out of the country and find there is no Network.

Pre-paid sims rarely have data, so you do lose the BB while using a pre-paid sim. I will sometimes use a pre-paid sim, and when I do, I'll cycle it out every couple of hours, put my home sim back in to sync up my email, then pre-paid back in.

Granted, the last few trips I've just used my home sim because of the hastle and just do lots of emails and skip the calls.

The whole idea behind a "world" phone, be it from Verizon or ATT, is to have the same phone number wherever you are. So that your family etc. can simply dial your cell phone without having to even know or care which continent you are on.

That said, if you plan on making a lot of long phone calls from overseas, use Skype!

I switched to wifi years ago because I got fed up with being reamed by roaming charges.

I'm not willing to pay 1/4 of what they can be, especially for data in Europe.

For calls, I've got South American, North American, and European SIMs.

Sometimes I have to root around for a network; but on balance, I'm much happier now.

In the worst case scenario, if you are stuck at some hotel with the chutzpah to try to charge $20/day or something for wifi (e.g. in Switzerland), you can always sign up for Boingo or some similar service, and pay the monthly fee.

The good thing about Verizon is the Network until you go out of the country and find there is no Network.
My experience says that this is a huge benefit :) I had a Verizon "World Phone" for about 3 months (until I couldn't deal with it any longer) and I had crystal clear reception at the top of the Great Wall of China, 100km from the nearest town, but a 5min call without being dropped in the NYC metro area was NEVER possible - not even once :)

Completely agree with RobertS975 by the way - having to give people a different number to use when you're travelling is practically impossible. SkypeIn, with my US mobile number forwarded to it when travelling, has worked well in the past but then there's the issue of text messages. Overall there isn't a seamless solution today, regardless of which approach you take.

I carry a separate phone and PDA outside the US. If you have unlimited text messages inside the US INBOUND text messages are free outside the US on at least ATT. Outbound messages cost, but you can get around that (if you are on an unlimited BB plan) with a program like fishtext or by e-mailing to the person's cell phone (e.g. 12125551212@tmo.net).

I'm lucky because I still have unlimited domestic call forwarding on my mobile (Cingular Fast Forward -- grandfathered). I call forward my number to a roaming SIM via a US number. Look at something like Voicestick's next to nothing number.

As others have pointed out if you take my approach and get a new pre-paid SIM card you will now have a new number. Yes, this can be a pain, but if you want to have the least expensive option without connecting through a internet service I think this is it. I only use the Verizon World Phone (not blackberry) so email and web access are not important to me. Also, I do not use txt message at least while out of the country.
If you do this you will need to imform others of your new phone number. This is how I do it, I change my voice mail greeting for my cell. I inform them they can leave a message here which I will still pick up or if urgent they can reach me at the following number xx-xx-xx-xx and I repeat this number a 2nd time. Please note I turn this phone off while slepping since most of the time I am 12 to 15 hours ahead of the USA where I go most often.
Doing this I save hundreds of dollars every month over what I would have paid Verizon, and now I carry one phone not two. Also, since I have been going to the same place on a regular basis I now just top off the SIM card so I have had that number for 18 months now.

One number... for the wife, the kids... the "always" available emergency number to tell me about fractured bones and various milder family emergencies like lost cell phones/credit cards etc. Then I can take care of the emergency via Skype where one can even dial a USA toll-free number from anywhere in the world.

And for idle chit-chat, I can use Skype as well.

Get T-Mobile and International Unlimited Blackberry for $19.99/month. That will take care of data. Then get a UMA T-Mobile blackberry use wi-fi & T-Zones for $9.99 switch off wireless, call home when in Wifi and talk unlimited. Or get an unlocked phone and a local SIM card and have your family call you from the States.

The whole idea behind a "world" phone, be it from Verizon or ATT, is to have the same phone number wherever you are. So that your family etc. can simply dial your cell phone without having to even know or care which continent you are on.

That said, if you plan on making a lot of long phone calls from overseas, use Skype!

I forward my US cell phone to my Skype in number, I forward Skype in to my prepaid SIM number. People call my cell and it rings on the prepaid. I pay Skype calling rates, usually about 20 cents per minute to a European cell phone plus $3 a month for the account. There may be a small charge for the Skype in number too, I forget, but it is trivial compared to the roaming rates. The incoming calls are free on a lot (but not all so be careful) of prepaid SIMS. I had been using country specific SIMs but have been more and more pleased with United Mobile. I carry a separate phone though, and just use my US world phone for texts. The calls to it are routed through Skype to the United Mobile or UK specific SIM.

And I almost forgot, charlottenchh, welcome to Flyertalk.

Depending on where you travel to you might want to check out www.callineurope.com . They offer a pay per day blackberry data plan, cheap calls per minute, and a feature that gives you a US # that will forward your calls to your international #. I forward my phone calls right before take off to a 312-XXX-XXXX # and it works great.

Not sure about rates to other areas of the world but for blackberry data (you can tether as well) in the UK it rocks.

local sim card + gtalk + wifi = perfect.

Depending on where you travel to you might want to check out www.callineurope.com . They offer a pay per day blackberry data plan, cheap calls per minute, and a feature that gives you a US # that will forward your calls to your international #. I forward my phone calls right before take off to a 312-XXX-XXXX # and it works great.

It sounds good, but do you want to spend $60.00 a year to keep the sim active.
I do not want to spend that much. Thats why I have a vodaphone sim to talk to people in the UK. I have a 888 number from Kall8 I use to to forward my calls to me. I even get my calls when I am in Dubai. No problems so far.

I , like a number of posters above, need to be reachable on my number. I carry 2 phones. My AT&T BB Curve phone and another phone with an international sim or local sim depending on how long I will be in a country. I have united mobile UM+ and maxroam sim with a US local number. I either forward my AT&T mobile to maxroam, or to UM+/country specific sim card (via my voicestick number). I continue to receive text on my curve and I check data as needed. As mentioned, with AT&T and tmobile recieving text comes out of your text bucket and call forwarding only uses your minutes.

Not sure about forwarding with Verizon though. I read somewhere that they and/or sprint charge $0.20/min for call forwarding. If that is the case, it may not be a cheap option for you.

When I travel aborad I use the data feature on my BlackBerry a lot. Time changes can make calling home a hassle, but email is a quick and easy way to let family and friends know where you are and that you are ok. I am also a HUGE fan of Google maps for BlackBerry. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have used it to find my hotel, resturant ect.
When I do make a voice call it is usually for just a minute or two, to make a reservation or confirm the hours or some place. I also like being able to see who is calling me back at home. I find buying a prepaid SIM and switching back and forth between it and my BES SIM to be moor trouble then it is worth. When I need to make a longer call I use Skype.

You forgot to mention Blackberry Messenger & PIN messaging. My wife and I both defected to Crackberries and the unlimited worldwide PIN messaging has definitely become addictive.

Get T-Mobile and International Unlimited Blackberry for $19.99/month. That will take care of data. Then get a UMA T-Mobile blackberry use wi-fi & T-Zones for $9.99 switch off wireless, call home when in Wifi and talk unlimited. Or get an unlocked phone and a local SIM card and have your family call you from the States.My understanding is that if you don't do the latter for $9.99, the time you talk comes out of your minutes but it is still treated like a call that originated in the States.

I need to check the BB PIN, I've seen it on my new BB, but have no clue as to what it's for.

My understanding is that if you don't do the latter for $9.99, the time you talk comes out of your minutes but it is still treated like a call that originated in the States.

Correct.



I need to check the BB PIN, I've seen it on my new BB, but have no clue as to what it's for.

PIN messaging is Blackberry-to-Blackberry messaging. You can send messages directly to another Blackberry over the Blackberry data network. Find out your PIN in Options -> Status or by pressing Alt-Right Shift-H from the home screen.

PIN messages are encrypted from Blackberry to Blackberry.

Get T-Mobile and International Unlimited Blackberry for $19.99/month. That will take care of data. Then get a UMA T-Mobile blackberry use wi-fi & T-Zones for $9.99 switch off wireless, call home when in Wifi and talk unlimited. Or get an unlocked phone and a local SIM card and have your family call you from the States.

Technically the unlimited international plan is unlimited international email, not data. In practice, T-mobile will only charge you for data aside from email access if the foreign carrier differentiates between the two when it bills T-mobile. This is very rare but it does happen sometimes. I've never been charged extra but have read about people who have.