No one wants to head overseas and lose contact with friends and family back home. However, roaming (which is what your phone will be doing when you head overseas using your existing carrier) can cost you a fortune. Telstra, Optus and Vodafone will all charge you very expensive roaming rates if you do not set your phone up properly before you leave Australia.
They all also offer Roaming Packages that you can purchase to assist with the cost blow out, but they are still very pricey compared to alternative method of keeping your phone alive when you travel.
If you do however insist on using Telstra as your carrier when you travel overseas, you need to understand what charges are going to apply and how to avoid bill shock when you get back home!
International calls
The international roaming Itinerary Builder allows you to build up a list of countries that you’ll be traveling to, and see the call costs in each country, technical details such as handset frequencies supported, whether International roaming datapacks are available for the country and then print it and take it with you.
Roaming data packs
Where possible, we negotiate down roaming prices levied by international carriers and in these instances we offer Data Packs that provide greater data value.
Telstra’s Roaming Data Packs provide pre-purchased allowances that can reduce the costs associated with browsing the internet and using email on phones and mobile tablets while overseas.
In February 2012 we boosted our international roaming Data Packs and upped the number of countries in which these packs can be used. international roaming Data Packs and Data Plans are available for use in the following 25 countries:
New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, USA, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, China, Switzerland, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Slovak Rep, Spain, Italy and Fiji. They allow customers to use data at effectively cheaper rates while overseas. Find out more.
How-to videos
Telstra have created a series of videos that are designed to help you understand how international roaming works on some of our best-selling handsets. It shows you how to access it, turn it on or off and some of the basics about these handsets to that you know exactly how to get the most out of your smartphone. We hope you find them helpful — check below for videos specific to your mobile phone.
