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.