Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

In a few weeks we go on a cruise vacation. We fly from the USA to
London and spend a couple of days in London (hopefully sleeping off the
jet lag), then on to an 11-day cruise around the British Isles (Ireland
and Scotland, no Wales), followed immediately by a flight back to the
USA.

We'd like to be able to maintain contact with our adult children for
emergency purposes. We have no experience using telephones overseas.

Can someone either make suggestions, or point to some good article that
contains suggestions for using your phone in that manner? We'd like to
avoid, if possible, astronomical charges for that previlege, but don't
have the foggiest notion what to do or what to not do.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer, or point us to.

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

In article m, Gary
wrote:

In a few weeks we go on a cruise vacation. We fly from the USA to
London and spend a couple of days in London (hopefully sleeping off the
jet lag), then on to an 11-day cruise around the British Isles (Ireland
and Scotland, no Wales), followed immediately by a flight back to the
USA.

We'd like to be able to maintain contact with our adult children for
emergency purposes. We have no experience using telephones overseas.

Can someone either make suggestions, or point to some good article that
contains suggestions for using your phone in that manner? We'd like to
avoid, if possible, astronomical charges for that previlege, but don't
have the foggiest notion what to do or what to not do.

if your phone is unlocked and can use a sim, get a local sim there.
you'll pay local rates for calls and you will have a local number.
someone calling you would need to call england.

or, just use it on wifi. be absolutely sure to turn off cellular. also
remove the sim (if it has one) so that there's no accidental
connections.

you can also use voip for international phone calls and not pay much
(or at all).

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

In article m, Gary
wrote:

In a few weeks we go on a cruise vacation. We fly from the USA to
London and spend a couple of days in London (hopefully sleeping off the
jet lag), then on to an 11-day cruise around the British Isles (Ireland
and Scotland, no Wales), followed immediately by a flight back to the
USA.

We'd like to be able to maintain contact with our adult children for
emergency purposes. We have no experience using telephones overseas.

Can someone either make suggestions, or point to some good article that
contains suggestions for using your phone in that manner? We'd like to
avoid, if possible, astronomical charges for that previlege, but don't
have the foggiest notion what to do or what to not do.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer, or point us to.


If they text I suggest doing that for maintaining contact for emergency
purposes. I add Global Messaging 50. For voice I usually purchase the
AT&T Europe Travel Minutes 30. I call them and give them the dates.
That way they will pro rate the fees. Those two add ons should be
sufficient for emergency purposes.

--
Charles

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

In article , nospam
wrote:

In article m, Gary
wrote:

In a few weeks we go on a cruise vacation. We fly from the USA to
London and spend a couple of days in London (hopefully sleeping off the
jet lag), then on to an 11-day cruise around the British Isles (Ireland
and Scotland, no Wales), followed immediately by a flight back to the
USA.

We'd like to be able to maintain contact with our adult children for
emergency purposes. We have no experience using telephones overseas.

Can someone either make suggestions, or point to some good article that
contains suggestions for using your phone in that manner? We'd like to
avoid, if possible, astronomical charges for that previlege, but don't
have the foggiest notion what to do or what to not do.

if your phone is unlocked and can use a sim, get a local sim there.
you'll pay local rates for calls and you will have a local number.
someone calling you would need to call england.

or, just use it on wifi. be absolutely sure to turn off cellular. also
remove the sim (if it has one) so that there's no accidental
connections.

you can also use voip for international phone calls and not pay much
(or at all).

If they have an iPhone 5 it is not likely they have an unlocked iPhone
on AT&T. They won't unlock it unless it is out of contract. In any case
buying a local sim is overkill if they only want to use it for
emergency purposes. Text messages are the least expensive way of
keeping in contact on a cruise. They can also text when the ship is at
sea and on the ships cell service.

--
Charles

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

On 8/9/2013 10:50, Charles wrote:
In article , nospam
wrote:

In article m, Gary
wrote:

In a few weeks we go on a cruise vacation. We fly from the USA to
London and spend a couple of days in London (hopefully sleeping off the
jet lag), then on to an 11-day cruise around the British Isles (Ireland
and Scotland, no Wales), followed immediately by a flight back to the
USA.

We'd like to be able to maintain contact with our adult children for
emergency purposes. We have no experience using telephones overseas.

Can someone either make suggestions, or point to some good article that
contains suggestions for using your phone in that manner? We'd like to
avoid, if possible, astronomical charges for that previlege, but don't
have the foggiest notion what to do or what to not do.

if your phone is unlocked and can use a sim, get a local sim there.
you'll pay local rates for calls and you will have a local number.
someone calling you would need to call england.

or, just use it on wifi. be absolutely sure to turn off cellular. also
remove the sim (if it has one) so that there's no accidental
connections.

you can also use voip for international phone calls and not pay much
(or at all).

If they have an iPhone 5 it is not likely they have an unlocked iPhone
on AT&T. They won't unlock it unless it is out of contract. In any case
buying a local sim is overkill if they only want to use it for
emergency purposes. Text messages are the least expensive way of
keeping in contact on a cruise. They can also text when the ship is at
sea and on the ships cell service.


If they have an iPhone 5 it is not likely they have an unlocked iPhone
on AT&T.

Not necessarily. I am using an unlocked iPhone 5 on AT&T. It may not
be normal or a wise thing to do, but it's because I'm a frequent
traveler, and I need to use local prepaid SIM cards to make local calls.

In any case
buying a local sim is overkill if they only want to use it for
emergency purposes.

I agree with you. A local (prepaid) SIM card makes sense for making
frequent "local calls" and it will be very expensive for making
international calls (call back).

I also agree with your suggestion for using AT&T's special international
rates, or it's for "emergency" only and if he has limited access to
WIFI, he could just use roaming service and turn off "cellular data" and
"data roaming" most of time and turn back on at a specific time to check
emails. For non-emergency voice calls, he can tell callers that he is
in overseas at the moment and will call them back - it takes about less
a minute, so it should be fine.

If WIFI is not a problem, turn off "cellular data" and "data roaming"
and use WIFI and Apps like Skype for international calls (well, if NSA
is not a concern).

For those who are frequent travelers and have foreign prepaid SIM cards
or land line numbers, you may consider using call forwarding service
provided by companies like United World Telecom, and it will forward, in
my case, my AT&T calls to one of their domestic numbers (close to my
billing address so it's a free local call) and then forward to any
foreign number (cellular or land line number with their forwarding
rates) in a supported country that I've put in my account settings, and
the forwarded number can be changed at any time.

PS: I am not associated with United World Telecom in any ways, and only
use it as an example because I am using its international call
forwarding service.

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

"Charles" wrote in message
d...
In article , nospam
wrote:

In article m, Gary
wrote:

In a few weeks we go on a cruise vacation. We fly from the USA to
London and spend a couple of days in London (hopefully sleeping off the
jet lag), then on to an 11-day cruise around the British Isles (Ireland
and Scotland, no Wales), followed immediately by a flight back to the
USA.

We'd like to be able to maintain contact with our adult children for
emergency purposes. We have no experience using telephones overseas.

Can someone either make suggestions, or point to some good article that
contains suggestions for using your phone in that manner? We'd like to
avoid, if possible, astronomical charges for that previlege, but don't
have the foggiest notion what to do or what to not do.

if your phone is unlocked and can use a sim, get a local sim there.
you'll pay local rates for calls and you will have a local number.
someone calling you would need to call england.

or, just use it on wifi. be absolutely sure to turn off cellular. also
remove the sim (if it has one) so that there's no accidental
connections.

you can also use voip for international phone calls and not pay much
(or at all).

If they have an iPhone 5 it is not likely they have an unlocked
iPhone on AT&T. They won't unlock it unless it is out of contract.

In any case buying a local sim is overkill if they
only want to use it for emergency purposes.

Most want to use them for much more than emergency purposes,
for doing all sorts of stuff like booking accommodation and other
bookings etc.

Text messages are the least expensive way of keeping
in contact on a cruise. They can also text when the ship
is at sea and on the ships cell service.

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

In article , Charles
wrote:

If they text I suggest doing that for maintaining contact for emergency
purposes. I add Global Messaging 50. For voice I usually purchase the
AT&T Europe Travel Minutes 30. I call them and give them the dates.
That way they will pro rate the fees. Those two add ons should be
sufficient for emergency purposes.

a much better way is get a free texting app. it might mean a different
number, but i'm sure they can manage that for the duration of the trip.

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

In article , Charles
wrote:

If they have an iPhone 5 it is not likely they have an unlocked iPhone
on AT&T.

at&t will unlock it for international use if the customer is in good
standing, or the phone might be unlocked already, such as a verizon
version.

They won't unlock it unless it is out of contract. In any case
buying a local sim is overkill if they only want to use it for
emergency purposes.

buying a local sim is not overkill. they will undoubtedly want to use
the phone for more than emergency purposes, including calling
restaurants, tourist attractions, hotels, etc.

Text messages are the least expensive way of
keeping in contact on a cruise. They can also text when the ship is at
sea and on the ships cell service.

for incredibly ridiculous prices.

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

In article om, JF
Mezei wrote:

You cannot disable voice/SMS roaming.

sure you can. just turn off cellular entirely.

What you can do however if you wish to be wi-fi only is to ask for a
disabled AT&T SIM cards (or one that was never activated). This way, you
can be sure AT&T cannot bill you when your phone is on in the UK since
AT&T will tell the local wireless company it does not accept the charges
for that unactivated SIM card).

no need for a disabled sim. just remove the existing sim.

however, that won't work for verizon or sprint, which don't use sims
for 3g (they do for 4g). there's nothing to remove. although there's no
cdma, it might still connect on lte, depending on what bands are in
use.

put it in airplane mode and turn on wifi to be safe if the sim can't be
removed.

Travelling with our AT&T-based iPhone5s
 

On 8/9/2013 1:53 AM, nospam wrote:
In article , Charles
wrote:

If they have an iPhone 5 it is not likely they have an unlocked iPhone
on AT&T.

at&t will unlock it for international use if the customer is in good
standing, or the phone might be unlocked already, such as a verizon
version.

They won't unlock it unless it is out of contract. In any case
buying a local sim is overkill if they only want to use it for
emergency purposes.

buying a local sim is not overkill. they will undoubtedly want to use
the phone for more than emergency purposes, including calling
restaurants, tourist attractions, hotels, etc.

Text messages are the least expensive way of
keeping in contact on a cruise. They can also text when the ship is at
sea and on the ships cell service.

for incredibly ridiculous prices.

50c each, which isn't all that bad, considering. Apparently you need to
make sure that you turn off imessaging on iphones, because it may use
data service to send texts if you do not.

Here's a flyer I found with a $35 package

http://www.cellularatsea.com/downloa...sportFlyer.pdf

BTW Verizon has a deal for $25 for 100mb of data overseas, and it
includes cruise ship data. I believe that AT&T has a similar package.
Data is very expensive if you don't do the package.

Bill