These days everyone wants to get phone coverage no matter where it is that they happen to be. If that wasn’t the case there wouldn’t be much of a reason to create a site like this in the first place. One of the problems that we’ve noticed is that local phone plans have made it so people really don’t need to worry about how much data they are using up. Particularly, in certain countries where unlimited plans from local service providers are easy to come by. When you’re traveling abroad roaming is still something that you need to be on the lookout for. In this article, we are going to truly explore what is iPhone data roaming. What you can do to avoid it and what you need to be worried about.
What Is iPhone Data Roaming?
Data roaming in general is the concept of using data from your regular service provider when you’re outside of your coverage area. In the past, you could be hit with roaming fees even if you were still in your home country. For the most part though at this point in time when you buy a plan or a prepaid SIM card from a phone company you’ll be able to get coverage throughout a whole country. Therefore, iPhone data roaming is just essentially using your iPhone outside of your regular area of coverage.
Why Is Data Roaming A Problem?
Is iPhone data roaming something that you need to be concerned about? If you’re traveling abroad it is certainly something that you should be looking into. The thing is your local network doesn’t have direct coverage for you in that area. What it has to do is piggyback coverage from a network that does cover that area to be able to make sure that your phone can get coverage. This usually means that you are going to have to pay an extra fee for the coverage that you’re using. Those fees can get out of this world expensive. Some countries have tried to minimize what you can be charged for data roaming. Even in those cases, you can still end up paying a bunch of money.
Should Your Data Be Off When Traveling Abroad?
This is the million-dollar question. Your rates could actually get to a million dollars with some companies by the way. Just kidding, or not we’d have to do more research on how bad things have gotten for some people. In any case, what we always recommend is to have a plan. Wireless service providers have Day Pass options that you can activate so that you don’t have to pay roaming fees directly. In most American service providers the day pass options allow you to use unlimited data for 10 dollars a day while you are outside of your converge area.
Ten dollars a day doesn’t sound like much, but the rate can definitely pile up if you spend more time abroad. Even in those situations, you’re going to want to make sure that you activate the day pass option so that you can get the coverage for the 10 dollar rate. If you continue to use your phone as you normally would there’s a good chance that you’d surpass the 10 dollars in roaming fees quickly throughout the day. When you go with a local SIM card for coverage there are a couple of things that you’re going to need to keep in mind. If your phone only admits one SIM card at a time you’d have to remove your regular SIM card. Therefore, there is actually no chance of getting hit with roaming. If you have a dual SIM phone things can get more complex.
We would say that for the most part, you are going to want to turn your data off when you’re traveling. That’s the most secure way to make sure that you won’t get hit with roaming fees. As we mentioned the best thing that you can do is make sure that you have a strategy in place. If you’re going to go with the day pass make sure that it’s active as soon as you turn your phone on at a new location. Again, you’re going to go with the local SIM card option there’s not much to worry about if you remove your regular SIM. If you don’t remove the SIM do make sure that data is off on that SIM.
How To Turn Your Data Off On iPhone
There are a couple of ways that you can assure yourself that data on your iPhone is off. You can go to airplane mode, and this feature automatically turns off data roaming. This is a good option because it’s one of the easiest features to find. It’s marked by an airplane icon on virtually every single phone that has been made for the last 15 years. When you have that on, you’re not getting hit with roaming fees, but you can activate a wifi connection. That’ll ensure that your phone data won’t ever kick in.
The second option that you’re going to have is to disable data roaming manually or turn off your data. That can be done from your settings or on some phones through an icon as well. All you have to do is make sure that the icon is not active. That small step can certainly save you a ton of money. It would be a good idea to make sure that the icon is not active at least at the start of every day. Particularly if you turn your phone off through the night. In some devices when the phone is reset data will turn on again. If you are one of the few people that still turn their phones off every night it would be a good idea to make sure that you check to see that data is off when you turn it back on.
The Rates For Data Roaming Will Vary Depending On Your Provider
The rates for iPhone Data roaming or roaming on device for that matter are going to vary depending on your service provider. Some service providers have what they call a pay as you go option. They try to sell it as an alternative to the international day pass option. The pay as you go schemes are essentially data roaming with a different name. We would advise that you don’t get caught up in these. A lot of people get caught by the pay as you go schemes because they think that they are not going to use up the ten dollars worth of coverage that the day pass costs. That could be true in very specific cases.
One of the biggest problems with pay as you go schemes or roaming is that you’ll get charged for the amount of data or minutes that your service provider records. A lot of times what happens is that there is no effective way to prove that you used up less data than what you actually did. We don’t want to come out and say that wireless service providers scam people and they charge them for more data than they actually used. As we mentioned in most cases there is no clear way that we could prove this. Here is something to think about though. Why would you give these companies a chance to charge you extra cash?
Can You Get Texts When iPhone Data Roaming is Off?
One of the main issues of turning data roaming off is the fact that you won’t be getting calls or texts when you’re doing this. You can use a wifi connection though and you could be getting texts or notifications from other apps. If you’re connected to your hotel wifi network for example you’d be able to communicate for free if you were doing so using apps. Again though, as far as calls and texts go you’re pretty much going to be in the dark. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a strategy on how you’re going to be getting coverage.
Dual Sim iPhone Data Roaming
If you have a dual sim phone and you want to put in a new local SIM card to get coverage while you’re abroad it’s really important to make sure that you turn off data from your regular SIM. If you keep both of the SIMs essentially active there is a chance that you could get hit with roaming fees. That would be a terrible situation because by all accounts you’re paying for the local SIM card to get a better deal on coverage. If you want to be extra careful you can always remove your regular SIM in dual SIM phones. If you’re dealing with an eSIM it’s actually really simple to deactivate coverage for a small period of time.
Final Thoughts On iPhone Data Roaming
It’s always a good idea to know how to check the coverage your phone is running on. Again, a lot of people are getting too used to the unlimited data plans. When you travel that can be a big problem because pretty much no matter what you do your data usage is going to be considerably more expensive than what you’re used to paying at home. Therefore, knowing how to switch your data off could come in handy even when you want to reset your coverage and things of that nature.
Are roaming fees something that you really should look to avoid? There’s no question in our mind here, you want to avoid roaming fees and the international pay as you go rates. Those are a really dangerous game because before you know it you are going to owe the wireless service provider over one hundred dollars. Remember that any type of money that you spend while abroad, whether it be in a day pass, roaming or even a SIM card is going to be an extra fee that you’re going to have to pay on top of the cost of your regular plan. So 3 days on the day pass could mean that you end up paying 30 dollars more on top of your regular plan which usually costs around 30 dollars in itself.