International travel options for Lumia owners on T-Mobile and AT&T

Published by Jason Harris on June 15, 2012

Summer vacations are upon us, and soon new owners of the Nokia Lumia 710 and Lumia 900 are going to head out to their destinations of choice. Some of us may venture inside the US while others will go international.

It’s a pain to be on vacation without a mobile phone these days. Sometimes you need to call your hotel to get directions and other times you want to stay connected via Facebook while your abroad. What’s a Lumia owner to do?

Luckily, both T-Mobile and AT&T, the respective carriers Lumia 710 and Lumia 900 both have options for those who go international. This post will outline both carriers options for going abroad to inform you before you head out.

T-Mobile options

T-Mobile customers who own a Lumia 710 will be happy to know what their phone will work virtually anywhere as it is a tri-band GSM phone using the most popular 3G signals. T-Mobile doesn’t have any predetermined plans for International roaming where you pay a fixed cost and are allotted a certain amount of minutes, texts and megabytes of data.

Instead, you pay for what you use.

Using this page, I looked up how much I would pay if I were to travel to the UK for the Olympics. In this case, I would pay $1.49 per minute dialed and data is $15 per megabyte. The rate is the same in France. For another sample, I chose Canada and I see the price is $0.59/minute for those headed North this summer.

AT&T has plans to consider

Switching gears to AT&T, the company just made changes last week to International calling plans that are in the consumers’ favor. Starting June 1, the Data Global Add-On packages are priced as follows:

120 MB Data Global Add-on package for $30/month
300 MB Data Global Add-on package for $60/month
800 MB Data Global Add-on package for $120/month

With these plans, you must keep them for at least one month but you can cancel them when you’re done traveling internationally. The rates mentioned above are good in 130 countries.

As for calling, standard international roaming on AT&T in the UK (using the same countries for comparison) is $1.39/minute. Dialing while in France? It’ll cost you $1.39 as well and if you’re in Canada, it will cost you $0.79/minute.

For any additional details and to see more options with AT&T roaming packages, consult their site.

Plan before you go

As you can see, it will be to your benefit to do some research before you head out on vacation. I have numerous friends who have used their phone as normal while abroad and get back to see roaming bills in upwards of $200 or $300, just for a 7-10 day vacation.

What have you done to avoid paying large roaming fees while abroad? Let’s share tips below!

Photo credit: HPUPhotogStudent

Be sure to follow us on Twitter @NokiaUS and on Facebook at Facebook.com/nokiaus.

Comments

Prasenjit Bist

should be pentaband work on that
Mitch_G

It’s upsetting how expensive everything gets once you’re in another country! I always feel ripped off. Phone calls and mobile internet are for many people an essential need nowadays, but most carriers still didn’t understand this fact.
I won a Lumia phone quiet a while ago which finally replaced my old smartphone (I’m always slow in buying a new phone) – but unfortuately my new Nokia phone is not practical at all for visits to foreign countries. Too many applications/features need an internet connection and I also missed an option to save webpages (for offline reading like Opera mobile does) or transfering files without using a web access. Unfortunately my phone carrier didn’t offer any other Nokia phone than Lumia so I had to get the new Samsung Galaxy, which seems to fulfil my needs so far.
Best way to save money on trips abroad is to prepare yourself (and your smartphone) as good as possible. I usually download everything I could need in advance or put any important documents/files on my phone for offline use (forget about accessing your cloud accounts). In case someone stays a long time in another country it might worth it to buy a pre-paid SIM card over there or even a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot (Vodaphone has some good offers and exists in many countries).
- http://conversations.nokia.com Ian Delaney
  
  I recently went to Italy and was able to use free WiFi at most cafes and also my hotel.
  - Mitch_G
    
    That’s true. I also made some good experiences in Italy. I think in most bigger cities you find here and there free or reasonable priced Wi-Fi spots. The problems start once you are in smaller cities or on the road.
    I think its terrible sometimes how much some hotels charge you to use their Wi-Fi (even nicer ones where you already pay a lot for a stay). I remember how terrible and expensive it was in Australia where hotels sometimes charge you up to 60A$ to use Wi-Fi for about 3 days…
    But we can’t expect that we get Wi-Fi everywhere… so lets keep blaming the expensive roaming fees ;-)
    
    Besides, sometimes it’s nice to know you can’t access the internet – especially on a holiday :-)
    - http://conversations.nokia.com Ian Delaney
      
      QFT: “ sometimes it’s nice to know you can’t access the internet – especially on a holiday :-)”
http://www.nikond3100review.co.uk/ nikond3100review

I could use my WiFi in Russia
Francois Magny

I’m addicted to my data plan!
Edison Saldano

I went to brasil and got hit with a 400.00 dollars bill for using my data for one hour using T-mobile .The best thing to do is change out the sim card for another while you are there and give your family and friends the number while you are there.
- http://conversations.nokia.com Ian Delaney
  
  Ouch!
  
  That’s a good tip. I noticed vending machines for PAYG SIM cards are appearing at airports (seen myself recently at LGW, LHW, and Miami).
http://twitter.com/alvetica Al Pavangkanan

I stick to unlocked phones so I don’t have to worry about this stuff when I travel.