For years, when you wanted to call abroad, you had to be wary about the number of minutes that you literally spent on the phone. To this day, making a call abroad through the conventional method can be expensive. Since you’re going to have to pay a per-minute rate in most cases. There are different plants that service providers offer. Which allows you to pay a set fee and get a preferential rate when you call to particular countries. In some cases, you can make “free calls” when you pay the fee. If you have to make multiple international calls, WhatsApp could be a better option.
In this article, what we are going to do is go over particularly the conditions that need to be met to be able to make the call. Also, the quality of the call is something that’s going to come into play. Ironically enough, the quality of the call shouldn’t necessarily depend on the distance between the two people that are calling. Another important aspect of international calls WhatsApp are the added costs that come your way. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that these calls are completely free. They can take up a ton of data, though. If you’re not careful about where you’re getting data, the call could end up costing more than it would via minutes!
- What Do I Need To Do To Make International Calls WhatsApp?
- What Are The Real Costs Of These Calls?
- Can I Trust International Calls WhatsApp To Have Decent Quality?
- Is This Better Than Making Regular Calls?
- Are There Countries Where The Services Won’t Be Active?
- Can You Trust The Encryption Service?
What Do I Need To Do To Make International Calls WhatsApp?
There is a shortlist of things that you need to make sure you essentially complete to be able to make international calls WhatsApp. First of all, you obviously need to have an account with WhatsApp and you need to make sure that the person that you’re trying to call also has an account on the app. Ideally, they’ll also be on your contact list. There are some people that can only receive calls from numbers that they have on their contact list. Because of this most of the calls that you’re going to be able to make through WhatsApp are going to be to close friends and family. You could, though, make sure that you have business associates and things of that nature on your contact list. This app is certainly helping folks and companies in that department.
If you have an account on the app and the other person that you’re trying to call also has an account on the app and is on your contact list, there’s only one more thing to account for. That is, to ensure that you have a stable internet connection. You can make calls through the data that you get from your mobile service provider. You can also make calls through a Wi-Fi network. When it comes to making international calls WhatsApp when you happen to be abroad, Wi-Fi is probably going to be your best option. Here are a couple of reasons why this is the case!
What Are The Real Costs Of These Calls?
Are international calls WhatsApp free? Nothing in life is really free. That being said, if you can find unlimited Wi-Fi in someplace, you can potentially call for as long as you want. For example, if you’re at home, and you make one of these calls via WhatsApp you should be ok if you’re on your home Wi-Fi network or if you have an unlimited plan. These calls are known to take up quite a bit of data, if you’re on a Wi-Fi network that’s not an issue. The problems really could start when you’re the one that is abroad. You need to make sure that you are using a Wi-Fi network in these cases.
The real issue is that nowadays, roaming costs of data could actually outweigh the roaming costs of calls. Now, Ideally, you’re not going to have to deal with any of the two. That’s pretty much the main reason why you would want to make calls through WhatsApp in the first place. Make sure that you’re on a free network or on a network that you’ve essentially already paid for. Like, the hotel Wi-Fi and things of that nature. There’s the portable Wi-Fi option as well. We have an article on that already, so I’m going to link to it here so that you can get all of the info that you need.
Just to sum up the point here though, If you make the call using your roaming data or even an international day pass the costs can go through the roof. International calls in WhatsApp only make sense if you are making them through a “free” Wi-Fi network. Otherwise, you could pay for the mistake later down the line. That’s not something that you want. The real costs could be limiting the speed and at which you’ll get data abroad. It can also make you go over the amount of data that you have available. That could put you in the roaming category, and that’s not a good idea.
Can I Trust International Calls WhatsApp To Have Decent Quality?
This is something that we kind of touched upon. The app is middle of the pack as far as quality goes in many respects. The biggest problem that you’re going to find when making calls through apps in general is that there are a lot of pieces that need to come together for the perfect call. Call quality is going to suffer if just one person has a lousy internet coverage. If you haven’t guessed, a lot of times when you’re abroad and relying on free Wi-Fi coverage, the speed of said coverage is not optimal. That’s really the challenge that you’re going to have to face if you want to make calls through any app. Then again, we can say the same thing about phone coverage abroad. Unless you’re using a local SIM card.
Overall, though, from experience, we can say that if you’re able to find decent coverage this shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of times when you travel, internet coverage is easy to come by in your hotel. Making the call back home as you wake up, or before you go to bed, isn’t going to be much of a problem. Particularly if you’re staying in an urban area, even in some countries that are at times labeled as undeveloped. The issue that we’ve found is that people who are missionaries in remote areas of the world criticize the coverage. Sadly, it’s really hard to get good Wi-Fi out there. That’s not necessarily a knock on the app. A quick and easy tip here is, don’t make video calls when on a lousy connection. Make sure to only turn your audio on so that you don’t force the app.
A final statement on this topic would be the app is fine! What you need to make sure that you can trust is your internet connection. That being said, WhatsApp is known to be picky when it comes to bad Wi-Fi!
Is This Better Than Making Regular Calls?
We hate saying this, but … it depends. If you can find reliable Wi-Fi coverage wherever it is that you’re going to, the answer is going to be yes. A lot of times though, as we just mentioned, traveling to remote places makes it hard to find Wi-Fi. If we are just talking price-wise, obviously making these types of calls through an app is usually going to be the less expensive option. Since you’re going to be able to make the call without having to worry about the number of minutes that you ultimately spend on the phone. If you’re paying roaming fees, for example, there is no question that international calls WhatsApp are a better option.
A mistake that a lot of people make is to think that they can get a local SIM card to be able to call abroad. Really, one of the main benefits that you’re going to have with a local SIM card is that you’ll get coverage in places that you wouldn’t get with your regular plan. Unless you buy though an unlimited data option for your local SIM card, you could be burning through your data really fast when making these calls. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but be sure to keep this in mind. People who are used to unlimited data plans can have a rough time when going abroad. Pretty much in any option that you have to get coverage abroad, you’re going to want to monitor the amount of data or minutes you use.
Are There Countries Where The Services Won’t Be Active?
Yes, there are a couple of countries that have outright banned WhatsApp, this has been over the whole data breach incident. Essentially, they don’t trust Mark Zuckerberg with data management. The list includes countries like Iran, China, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and North Korea. If you’re playing to save money on international calls in your trip to Dubai or Beijing, then you need to make sure that you look for another app that is not the property of Mark Zuckerberg. Options like Telegram, Skype, and even Zoom come to mind. Although, Zoom may get a ban soon if it gets bought out by an American media giant.
The other instance that you may need to worry about is not having decent internet coverage where you’re going. We’ve mentioned this already. There are countries across the globe, though, where the app may not be necessarily banned. The problem is that you’re not going to be able to make decent calls through it because you won’t have good internet coverage. This can also be the case in what may be considered more developed countries. However, if your plan is to go to rural areas in those countries, you can have a hard time getting coverage. These are all elements that you would do well to take into account before you travel!
Can You Trust The Encryption Service?
We’ve talked about Mark Zuckerberg and the security breach in his companies was certainly something that at one point saw people migrate from WhatsApp to other apps. Is this something that you should consider? This is really a tough call. A lot of times WhatsApp is the option that people talk about for international calls because it’s the app with the larger user base where you can make these calls. If you’re going to be making informal calls to friends and family, the service is going to work just fine. You can have a level of security that meets your standards. There are people though who don’t feel safe on these apps.
At this point, it’s hard to argue a case if you’re sold on either side. We would have to say that WhatsApp stepped their game up with security after the whole debacle that saw Mark Zuckerberg speaking to members of Congress. If you’re making a formal call, it can be a little weird to make it via the app. The reality though is that any app that you can find out there is going to potentially have the same flaws as WhatsApp. Calling from a landline has historically never been ultra safe, either. Get a satellite phone if you want to be extra safe. That kind of goes away from the general point of this article. So we’ll just say you can generally trust the encryption service. Pretty much to the same degree that you would trust any other app.
Conclusion On International Calls WhatsApp
Looking back at the article, we’ve kind of played devil’s advocate on both sides of the argument. Ultimately, if you know that where you’re going you can find a stable Wi-Fi connection, international calls WhatsApp are always going to be a good option. Just the fact that you’re not going to have to literally count the minutes that you spend on the phone is an advantage. That being said, if there’s one thing that we would say you need to make sure you check before you call is your connection. Make sure that you’re calling from a Wi-Fi network. Otherwise, the cost of the call could be much greater than you would pay for a regular call. To avoid any issues the best thing that you can do is go to airplane mode and then switch on your Wi-Fi. Do that, or just turn off your regular data entirely. That way, it doesn’t kick in at any point.
When it comes to the safety aspect, we would say, don’t worry too much. If you keep your privacy settings where they need to be you’re going to be ok. Don’t be giving out your WhatsApp number to strangers. Especially in certain foreign countries where extortion is common. If you set your privacy settings to where only people on your contact list can contact you, you should be fine. As far as extra safety features, you can get a VPN and do those types of things. Particularly if you’re going to be using an open Wi-Fi network. Again, though, that’s something that we would recommend anyway. Regardless of whether you’re using WhatsApp for international calls or another app.