The
Australian
July
18 2006
Have
phone will travel
Ian
Grayson
THERE
was once a time when international business trips were a great excuse for being
out of contact.
"He's
in the States until next week" or "She's visiting
Different
time zones, recalcitrant hotel operators and language barriers made
communicating with road warriors difficult.
It
was usually easier to forget about them until they returned.
Then came global roaming, one of the technological
marvels of the 20th century, to put an end to executive exile.
As a
result of widespread standards and agreements between national phone companies,
the humble mobile phone became just as useful in Chicago or Paris as in Sydney
or Hobart.
Armed
with an appropriate handset and roaming authorisation
from their providers, all travellers had to do when
they stepped off their aircraft in
With
roaming agreements between British operators and their Australian counterparts,
calls could be made and received as easily as they might be at home.
The
concept caught on like wildfire, and attracted by the convenience and
productivity benefits of being contactable regardless of where in the world
they happened to be, business people roamed wherever possible. The world became
just a little smaller.
Although
global roaming offers considerable benefits to travelling executives, those
benefits come at a hefty price. Business people returning to their offices are
regularly faced with hefty mobile bills as a stark reminder of their travels.
Adding
to the pain for roamers is that they get slugged with charges regardless of
whether they are making or receiving calls.
If,
for example, someone in
Making
outgoing calls attracts extra charges because the network on to which you have
roamed levies foreign phones with an extra premium for the privilege of
connecting to its infrastructure, together with heavy rates to make the international
connection.
Last
year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission issued a report criticising the high charges levied by mobile phone
carriers for roaming services.
"The
ACCC's report expresses concerns that prices for
international roaming services appear to be very high, especially compared with
charges for other mobile telephone services," ACCC commissioner Ed Willett
said when the report was launched.
The
report states that the main factor governing the charges is wholesale charges levied
by overseas mobile network operators. Unfortunately, this is something over
which the ACCC has no jurisdiction.
It's
certainly worth checking roaming charges before setting out on a business trip.
A
quick visit to the website of your domestic operator will forewarn you of what
to expect when you're chatting in a
Telstra
mobile customers attending a conference in
Head
somewhere such as Mexico and the news is even bleaker, because a national call
on operator TelCel's network will cost $1.74 a minute
and calls to Australia will rack up $6.71 a minute.
If
you use SMS instead, you'll be looking at 72c a message. Users of other
networks face similar charges.
An
Optus mobile user attending meetings in
Having
those at home make the call doesn't help.
Receiving
calls from
Such
charges will spoil the lunches of small business executives as well as
bean-counters at larger companies, but there are ways to limit the costs and
remain in touch while jetting around the globe.
One
option is to take advantage of a service offered by small Australian company
vRoam, which provides travellers with a SIM card
linked to a mobile operator in the country to which they are heading.
Big
savings are made possible by replacing an Australian SIM with a vRoam SIM.
With
a country-specific SIM, calls made within the country are treated and billed as
domestic calls and although calls home still attract international rates, they
are lower than those for calls made with an Australian SIM, vRoam chief
executive Danny Nathanson says .
"With
our SIMs, the traveller becomes a local from the network's point of view, and
the call charges are correspondingly lower," he says.
VRoam
estimates it can save travellers about 40 per cent on
call costs.
Users
can divert their Australian mobile number to the vRoam SIM's
number, so they can receive calls while away.
Another
option for the budget conscious, who want to remain contactable while visiting
a trade show in
Pre-paid
SIMs require no ongoing contract and can be bought
with a set amount of credit that can be topped up during the trip as needed.
Because
it's a local SIM, call charges are lower and there's no unexpected big bill
when you get home.
Pre-paid
SIM users benefit also from having a local phone number while away.
This
is useful for staying in touch with work associates.
Another
cost-cutting option for international travellers is
to ditch the mobile phone altogether and use calling cards.
These
cards, available in most countries through shops and vending machines, offer a
set call credit that can be used to make calls from any phone in the country.
Card
providers offer heavily discounted rates by pre-purchasing bulk call minutes
from international carriers and then passing on these savings to card users.
Increasingly,
these use voice over internet protocol services for the international leg of a
call.
Although
VoIP voice quality may not be the same as traditional
phone services, the lower costs more than make up for it.
The
obvious downside of calling cards is that the user cannot be called.
Some
cost-conscious business travellers have made big
savings by receiving messages on SMS and then making the reply call using a
card.
Although
global mobile roaming is extremely convenient, costs associated with its use
are unlikely to drop in the foreseeable future.
With
the profit margins of telecommunications companies being constantly squeezed,
roaming remains one of the most promising and high-margin services on offer and
they're not going to erode this without a fight.
Travellers can remain in touch without
breaking the bank by the careful use and the selection of other services.
Being
out of the country is no longer an excuse for being out of touch.
Copyright:
The Australian 18 July 2006