Vodafone - scared to take phone on holiday!

elvis86

I'm going to New York for a holiday next month, I'm a bit of a technophobe and as such am a little worried about taking my phone and incurring massive charges!

I have a Nexus S smartphone, what exactly do I need to do prior to going to NYC? Would it be wise to switch the internet off? And how much is it likely to cost to use Facebook/make calls/texts whilst I'm there?

Thanks in advance!

grumbler

It would be wise to switch it off and to do this correctly.
Using the internet abroad
If you want internet and don't want to pay £3/Mb use free WiFi or a local sim.

Check Roaming Costs

cgk1

There are a lot of ways to do this (such as manually changing the APN to nonsense) but I like Switchpro widget because it controls many other functions.

Basically it's a strip of switches that sits on your homescreen that allows you to toggle things on and off - one of which is the data connections - so you have a visual reference/reminder that it's on/off on your home screen.

gjchester

elvis86 wrote: »

I'm going to New York for a holiday next month, I'm a bit of a technophobe and as such am a little worried about taking my phone and incurring massive charges!

I have a Nexus S smartphone, what exactly do I need to do prior to going to NYC? Would it be wise to switch the internet off? And how much is it likely to cost to use Facebook/make calls/texts whilst I'm there?

Thanks in advance!

First decide if you really need it , would you be better leaving this at home ans swapping for an older mobile, I do that as my iPhones battery life is not great and go back to an old Motorola that gives me 4-5 days on a charge. I only use it for a once a day check on texts and in case I need it for an emergency reasons so I don't have to take a charger. It's also not a smartphone so theres no risk of anything sucking down data..

Check with your network they have set you account to have international roaming if you haven't then there is no point taking the phone.

Remember to put a PIN lock on the phone and a SIM lock on the card.

PIN lock will prevent the phone being used if you lose it or have it stolen, SIM lock will prevent someone swapping the sim card into another phone to get around the PIN code lock on the phone.

Costs will be on vodafones website as already suggested, but wifi in a hotel will mnost likely be free, however remember you need to make sure you connect to that wifi NOT the 3G network, or you'll get data charges, remember many apps like facebook apps check for status updates from time to time and if your not in the wifi range it will use 3G.

Famous_Seamus

You're are right to be afraid.
I have just come back from a 4 day trip to NY and managed to rack up £93.00 in data charges for 23.5MB of internet data, normal email and minimal Facebook use. I also managed a further £46 in call charges. :mad:
Vodafone do not offer anything else in the US, £3 per MB is excessive to say the least. I could have bought a phone cheaper !!:eek:

That said enjoy your trip, New York is great :beer:

Hammyman

Use one of the many free wifi hotspots there are in the US. There's a McDonalds and Starbucks every 50ft all with free wifi. Use Skype to make calls to landlines so at least you know what the bill will be.

thommy

I'm with Tmobile and got some unusually helpful advice from a customer services rep, when I recently went abroad: He told me, if I was going to use wifi connections, to put the phone into 'Airplane' mode to make sure the phone wasn't unknowingly connecting over the phone networks and thus eating up data.

grumbler

It was a bad advice in fact because in this mode all wireless connections are switched off, including WiFi.

watcherman

grumbler wrote: »

It was a bad advice in fact because in this mode all wireless connections are switched off, including WiFi.

But you just turn wifi back on, so he gave him half the solution

gjchester

watcherman wrote: »

But you just turn wifi back on, so he gave him half the solution

Not really, the first thing the phone will do coming out of airplae mode is search for a cellular network and most likely then try and update apps. Unless you are in a open wifi zone (ie no logon) chances are it will start to download before you get the wifi setup.

grumbler

They meant turning the WiFi on while staying in the Airplane Mode. Yes this can be done.