Whenever you hear someone offering anything for free you usually ought to take it with a grain of salt. As there is usually a reason behind why they are offering something for free. Especially when you get those ads that tell you to sign up for something at it is free. In other cases, you may think something is free, but you are actually paying for it in an indirect manner. Today we want to find out whether or not it is technically possible to text internationally for free. There are a couple of ways that lead us to believe this technically could be possible. Yet, there is a process involved with this ordeal. You are not just going to be able to do this and then naturally just start texting. This process usually involves mobile apps. Of course, the suggestions that are going to be made in this article contemplate legitimate apps that are widely used.
Just right off the bat, we want to say that this is not clickbait at all. There are ways to actually text internationally for free. What we are going to explore though, is whether or not those free methods are technically a good idea for you or not. At times paying a small fee for international coverage can go a long way. Especially in emergency situations. Another one of the important points that we are going to want to touch upon precisely covers this topic. If you go the free route you could be forgoing a lot of other benefits that you would potentially be able to obtain if you were to pay at least a small fee to a company while traveling abroad. With that said, here are the topics that we are going to be covering in this particular article.
- How it is possible to obtain free international texting
- Will my phone work with any wifi connection?
- Best apps to text and call internationally
- The hidden costs of free international texting
- Pros and cons of the method to obtain free international texting
- Unlimited international texting with your regular number
- Texting on a foreign SIM card
How it is possible to obtain free international texting
The way to actually get a chance to text internationally for free is pretty straight forward. We are sure that some of you are going to be saying “of course” by the first line. What you would have to do is download a messaging app for your phone. These can be apps like Whatsapp, Telegram, even Skype or Google Hangouts could do the trick. What needs to happen is that your friends or the people that you want to come into contact with need to be on the app as well. You could even do this through Facebook Messenger or Instagram. Granted messaging through these apps is usually not so great.
Essentially these apps are always free. The problem is that you would have to be paying for international data to be able to use these apps while abroad. Actually you would have to be paying for data locally as well. So, what you would need to do is make sure that you are connected directly to a wifi connection. For it to be free, this would have to be a wifi connection that you are not paying for. Coffee shops, hotels and many city centers in pretty all of the cities that you could think about abroad are going to have at least one of these options for you.
Finally, all that you would need to do is stay connected to a wifi account if you want to literally get your free international texting dose. Some of the negative aspects of this are pretty obvious. You are not going to have any coverage if you are not connected to a wifi network. That being said applying this method could certainly help you save a ton of money if you are disciplined enough.
Will my phone work with any wifi connection?
If we are talking about a private network, there is really no big reason as to why your phone would not be working on it if you happen to have the password. If we are talking about a public network again, there are no glaring reasons as to why you would be shut out from using a particular network. All you really have to do is make sure that you activate the wifi on your phone. Find the right network put in the password. These apps that we are talking about are going to run on a wifi connection. You are not going to need mobile service to be able to execute these apps. That being said, the effectiveness of this plan could really diminish if you are getting very slow network connections. These apps will still technically work, but if your internet connection is slow, you are going to have a tougher time getting them to be as efficient as you probably want them to be.
Best apps to text and call internationally
We have already talked about how you can do this for free while being connected to a wifi network. So, there is really no point in going down that road yet again. Of the apps that we have talked about Whattsapp seems like a natural pick. Just because, there are a lot more people already on the app. It is more likely to have your friends get on it and things like that. Texting is simple and easy. If that is what you want it to be. To be honest, Telegram pretty much works in the same exact way. Telegram works very well for business. A bit of a more formal layout is what you could get from Telegram. As far as the calls go, on both apps, you can get decent quality. At the end of the day though, a lot more is going to depend on the strength of your connection.
If you are looking for a way to hold a video call you are probably going to get better video quality from the Skype app. The thing with Skype and Zoom is that if you want to use them for free you are not going to be calling a phone number most of the time. Actually on Skype, if you call a phone number directly from the app it costs you. You can call their Skype account for free though. Which in a lot of ways is making an email call if you will.
Having said this, the win here would have to be between Whatsapp and Telegram. You could potentially get better quality with Telegram, but since more people are on Whatsapp and you can get “free” Whatsapp texts on some foreign SIM card the win will go to the company owned by Facebook in this scenario.
The hidden costs of free international texting
This is kind of a given, but we are still going to talk about it because some companies will offer you certain benefits on your foreign SIM card that are borderline false advertisement. Essentially you can text, send pictures, videos, voice notes, and even stickers on an app like Whatsapp all at no cost. Yet, to be able to send anything from point A to point B you are going to need an internet connection to be able to get that done. Therefore, you are going to be using up data to be able to send these texts across. Messaging apps tend to take up a lot of data. If you combine that with the use of apps like Instagram you could be using up your data fairly quickly. For a lot of people that are accustomed to going through life with an unlimited plan, this may be news.
In some countries, you are going to get SIM card offers that advertise the fact that Facebook and Whatsapp are free of data usage. This certainly seems great right? You are going to be getting coverage abroad ,and pretty much two of the main apps that could be eating up your data are free! You have to read the fine print though. Essentially if you use a fully text version of Facebook with no images, you can “navigate” through the app for free. With Whatsapp, it is essentially the same thing. If you send or receive images, videos, and presumably voice notes you will be using up data. When you read about the no data usage with these apps benefit, you should take it with a grain of salt. This type of advertising is very common in Mexico and Latin America.
Pros and cons of the method to obtain free international texting
If you are really thinking about using the free international texting method we mention you may want to go over some of the main benefits that you could potentially obtain if you were to use this method. As well as take a good hard look at what could go wrong.
Pros
These are really simple actually. You are not going to have to spend a dime more than you would on your regular plan if you don’t want to. If you have a good internet connection there is no reason why you would not be able to call people up, have video calls, and texts with pictures voice notes and whatever you want. Again, you are going to be able to do this without the fear of coming home to a bill that is just out of this world.
Cons
You are essentially limited to using your phone indoors. This means that if you need to make a call to someone or text when you are lost abroad you are going to have to go ahead and find a phone booth! Good luck with that by the way. Even in underdeveloped countries, these are not around anymore. If you need to use a Maps app you are not going to be able to do so either. So have fun asking for directions.
Unlimited international texting with your regular number
Can you get unlimited texting while abroad with your regular number? Yes, you can get unlimited texting, but not free texting. If you pay the international day pass on most mobile service providers you are in essence going to have access to your unlimited texting rights. Since this pass is for people who have unlimited plans and it is basically an unlimited everything pass for 24 hours. Of course, you are going to have to pay 10 dollars a day for this pass or 5 dollars a day in Mexico or Canada. While it may not be a great idea if you are going to be staying at a specific location for an extended period of time it may not be the worst idea if you are going to be there one or two days. For 20 dollars you could essentially stop worrying about how you are going to get coverage.
The thing is you need to make sure that if you are going to decide to take this route, you activate the plan. With most service providers you are going to be able to do that through their app on your phone. If you can’t get it activated there you could call or even head over to a local store. Making sure that you have that activated will help you avoid roaming costs. Which, can go way beyond ten dollars a day if you go with the pay as you go option. There are also companies like Verizon that offer unlimited texting with their prepaid plans. They have an option where you can pay an extra fifteen dollars aside from your monthly to be able to use your phone in Mexico and Canada. This “using your phone” is actually going to include the opportunity to have unlimited texts. The only problem with this option is that you are not going to be able to use it for every country. Yet, it is an option that is out there and maybe worth taking a look at!
Texting on a foreign SIM card
If texting is your number one method of communication and pretty much the outright reason why you happen to own a phone in the first place then you are probably going to want a SIM card abroad that is going to allow you to text. There can be a problem though, with this ordeal. Pretty much all of the foreign SIM card prepaid plans that you can buy across the globe are going to give you at least some type of texting option. The problem that you may face is that the texts that you could send with that SIM card are not going to reach your contacts in America. In some countries, this is going to depend on the mobile service provider that you chose.
When it comes to buying SIM cards we usually recommend that you check out our guys at simoptions, since they happen to have the widest selection of foreign SIM cards on the web. Not only that, but they are actually going to be able to help you dissect what exactly it is that you are buying. Which is not something that you could typically obtain from Amazon. If you happen to have any doubts about the actual limitations of the coverage that you could potentially get with a particular SIM card you can simply ask before you buy. They will be able to let you know exactly what you are buying before you have to pull the trigger and make the purchase.
Is Free International Texting Possible or Practical?
In the first paragraph, we essentially proved that free international texting , or messaging to be more precise is essentially possible. If we are 100% technical about free international texting per se is not possible. Since you would need mobile coverage to actually send an SMS text message. Yet, free international messaging through your phone, yes that can be done. There is an argument to be made though, that you could do this with a computer iPad and even iPhone or surface tablet whatever type of gadget you happen to use. Since these messages are coming across thanks to a wifi connection.
Having said, this and having exposed some of the cons that exist with trying these methods it is just not the most practical method to communicate while abroad. Since you would basically be in the dark or forced to pay roaming fee or the international day pass if you needed coverage when you walked outside. If you are a tourist that is visiting a place like Las Vegas that may not be a major issue. Since you are going to be inside most of the time and if you get lost all you have to do is walk up or down the strip. Also, if you are the head of a family of various members it may not be within your budget to be able to pay for foreign SIM cards for everyone in the family. It could make sense to only pay for one foreign SIM card and keep the rest of the family on the free method. If that is the case make sure that your kids are following the free method only so that you don’t come back home to a massive bill!