Travel Craft
Staying connected abroad is a choice between three different products
Roaming on your own plan, a local subscriber identity and a data-only profile solve different problems at very different prices, and the right one depends on whether you need a phone number or only data.
By Arjun Nair3 min read
Roaming is your own network renting somebody else’s
When your phone connects abroad it is using a foreign operator’s equipment under an agreement between that operator and your own. Your provider is charged for that, and what you pay is whatever it has decided to pass on, which is why roaming prices bear little relation to the cost of the data.
Regional arrangements have changed this substantially in some parts of the world, where regulation obliges providers to offer roaming within a bloc at domestic rates. That is a legal construct rather than a technical one, so it applies precisely to the countries covered and stops sharply at the edge of the group.
Outside such arrangements the picture is uneven. Many providers now sell a daily or weekly travel bundle at a fixed price, which is usually the simplest option for a short trip, and the same providers may charge extraordinary per-megabyte rates to anyone who does not buy one.
A local subscription is cheaper and gives you a local number
Buying a prepaid plan in the country you are visiting is almost always the cheapest way to get a substantial amount of data, and it comes with something the alternatives do not: a local telephone number. That matters more than it sounds, because a great deal of ordinary life expects one.
Local numbers are used to receive delivery messages, confirm taxi bookings, contact accommodation, and complete verification steps for local services. A traveller with data but no local number can find themselves unable to complete the last step of an otherwise straightforward transaction.
The cost is administrative. Many countries require identification to register a subscriber identity, some require it to be done in person by the user, and a few impose additional requirements on foreign visitors. That is a queue at a shop rather than an obstacle, but it is a queue.
Embedded profiles removed the plastic and not the rules
A downloadable profile stored in the phone allows a local or regional data plan to be bought and installed without visiting a shop, and it can be arranged before departure. For data on a short trip it is frequently the least troublesome option available.
Two limitations recur. Most of these products are data-only, so they do not provide a usable local number for calls and messages, and they depend on your device supporting the technology and not being locked to a single provider, which older and some carrier-supplied phones are.
Registration requirements haven’t disappeared either. Where a country requires identification for a mobile subscription, that obligation applies regardless of how the profile was delivered, and some regional products handle it by connecting through an operator in a neighbouring country instead.
Coverage is local and averages are misleading
National coverage figures describe the population served rather than the ground covered, and the two diverge sharply in mountains, on coasts, on rural railways and on the water. An operator that is excellent in the cities of a country may be the wrong choice for a walking trip in it.
Where coverage matters, the useful question is which operator is strongest in the specific region you are going to, and the reliable answer usually comes from people who live there rather than from a map on a website. Coverage maps are drawn optimistically almost everywhere.
It also pays to plan for having no signal at all rather than treating it as a failure. Downloading maps, tickets, reservations and translation packs before leaving a connected area converts a dead zone from a problem into a quiet afternoon, and it is a habit worth keeping even where coverage is good.
The decision is about what you actually need it for
For a short trip with light use, a travel bundle from your existing provider is usually the least effort and rarely the cheapest. For a longer stay, or heavy data use, a local prepaid plan is markedly cheaper and gives you the local number that makes daily transactions work.
For data on a multi-country trip, a regional profile avoids repeated shop visits and repeated registration, at the cost of not having a number anywhere. Many people end up carrying two arrangements at once: their home number kept alive for messages and verification, and local or regional data for everything else.
Whatever the choice, the one thing worth doing before departure is checking what your existing plan does automatically on arrival. Providers differ in whether roaming is enabled by default, capped, or billed at full rate, and finding out at the airport is considerably better than finding out on the bill.
Common questions
Will I lose my usual number if I use a local plan?
Not if your phone supports two profiles at once, which most recent devices do. The common arrangement is to keep the home number active for incoming messages while using the local plan for data, though you should check what your provider charges for receiving messages abroad.
Do I need identification to buy a local mobile plan?
In many countries yes, and in some the requirement is strict enough that a passport must be presented in person. It varies considerably, so it is worth checking before assuming a plan can be bought at a kiosk on arrival.
Is airport wifi enough to get by?
For a short transit, usually. For anything more it tends to be slow, time-limited and awkward to authenticate on, and relying on it means being disconnected precisely when you are arriving somewhere unfamiliar, which is when connectivity is most useful.
Features writer, The Next Postcard
Arjun has written about cities, slow routes, rail & road for most of the last decade and prefers a plain explanation to a clever one.
