A Traveler’s Guide to Mobile Phone Plans

Traveling is exciting, especially if you are going to a new country for vacation, visiting friend and family or for work. However, certain inconveniences can be expected and with a good plan, you can greatly reduce them. One of these inconveniences is your communication and that’s why you will find more phone shops in airports than in malls. For most beginner’s the moment they arrive in a new country there is a urge to find a mobile plan that works for them without even doing in-depth research. This can be a constantly mistake especially iff you intend to travel a lot and for longer duration.

Which Are The Best Mobile Phone Plans For Travelers?

Travelers have unique needs and choosing the best mobile plans depends on their duration of stay, where they intend to travel and their budget. As you can see, the choice of mobile phone is not a major factor since you don’t need a particular mobile phone wherever you are going. If you already have a great phone, and you are on a prepaid mobile plan, then there is no point getting on another mobile phone plan if your stay will last less than a month. You can get on a single-use prepaid plan or a sim-only plan.

However, if you are traveling for a longer time period and you will largely stay in the same area, then consider an unlimited plan that offers good tariffs on a local network. Business travelers will find this option quite handy since they can make a lot of cheap calls and still use their data and Wifi to leverage on their data costs. An unlimited tariff offering more calls than data is great if your office and hotel room already have great WiFi.

How to Reduce Roaming Charges

Roaming charges will affect your spend significantly whether your are on a prepaid, unlimited or sim only plan. Therefore, your choice of mobile phone plan won’t really affect your roaming charges. However, your choice of carrier network will affect your roaming charges since if you are on the same carrier network then you won’t have roaming charges. However, if your carrier is small and doesn’t have any agreements with local carriers, then you will have significantly higher roaming charges.

When traveling to a country as large and diverse as Australia, choosing the right mobile plans in Australia will depend on where you stay and how much you move between coverage areas. There are smaller carriers in the suburbs and the larger carriers in the larger areas and therefore your best bet is to choose a larger carrier which has good network in both the suburbs and the other areas.

Conclusion

Overall, the most important factors to research are the carrier networks and the tariffs on offer. Your choice of mobile phone plans will depend on the answers you get. Mobile plans in Australia are diverse and just like any other large country, you will find small carriers and larger ones. Always choose a larger carrier before you can think about getting a mobile phone along with the plans.