msfi

It's high time I upgraded my phone, and I also need to upgrade my data access on my phone while abroad. I was stuck for 6 days with the volcano debacle and will soon be traveling through West Africa and Latin America, where I will need to stay in touch with work. I also spend a fair bit of time int the EU.

I'm interested to know which mobile network is best for data roaming - currently I have a PAYG SIM with O2, I pay 3 GBP for each megabyte downloaded. It isn't calculated daily so I can browse my mail over a few days before it hits the 1mb. However, I am planning to upgrade to a new smartphone and I'll be using much more than this.

Are there any companies that are less-exorbitant than others? Bonus: any that allow tethering to use the phone as a modem without an extra fee. I don't actually use my phone very much at home in the UK so I don't need a good plan here, but I also don't want to be buying a new SIM in every country I go to.

MAN Pax

Really, if you PAYG now, this may well be the best option going forward, or maybe a generic travel sim.

Otherwise, you'll be throwing away money in the UK in used tariff charges.

You may find ASDA mobile (PAYG) appealing - cheaper in the UK, and not too eye watering in the EU.

Dubai Stu

Vodafone's data passport is the best deal I know. It is pretty affordable in the EU, OZ, etc. I can't speak about West Africa. There are many unlimited Blackberry International data plans, but these are mostly contract plans.

I don't know about your usage, but look at iphonetrip.com's iPhone plan with a jailbroken iPhone and a wifi tethering program from the Cydia store. The plan is pricey, but you get 5 gigs a week anywhere in the world.

The other nice thing with this plan is you can do VOIP over 3G. Get the Acrobits soft phone and put ten Euros on a Voipcheap.com account and you'll get 300 minutes a week to UK landlines. In cities with 3G data, you can talk over the air for free.

Now get Fishtext's SMS program -- two Euro Cents to text the UK. For 15 Euros a year, they will give you a UK number which can receive texts abroad.

Get a second cheap prepaid phone and get an EKit SIM. They will give you an 0792 number with free incoming in 80 countries including most of the EU, the US, large portions of AFrica.

msfi

Thank you all for your comments - seems like Asda is backed by Vodafone which could be a way to go... certainly Vodafone seems to be in many of the places I travel to which is a plus.

Thanks again, now to keep hunting for that elusive best handset...