International Travel Question

[tiffer16]

Does anyone know if it's possible to turn off data when roaming internationally, but still be able to use text. A lot of posts have said to use airplane mode but that won't allow me to text. I'm going on a cruise and won't be using the phone much (certainly don't need apps etc) but I'd like to check back in at home via text (which isn't outrageously expensive) and I don't want to get killed in data usage by having the phone on.

I've never travelled with my Droid so I don't know what to do. In the past, I just used my old phone as normal, and avoided going on the internet, but the phone still worked. Any advice would be extremely helpful.

 

[blackjoker4215]

Does anyone know if it's possible to turn off data when roaming internationally, but still be able to use text. A lot of posts have said to use airplane mode but that won't allow me to text. I'm going on a cruise and won't be using the phone much (certainly don't need apps etc) but I'd like to check back in at home via text (which isn't outrageously expensive) and I don't want to get killed in data usage by having the phone on.

I've never travelled with my Droid so I don't know what to do. In the past, I just used my old phone as normal, and avoided going on the internet, but the phone still worked. Any advice would be extremely helpful.

If your network connection is on and you are outside the coverage area, then all activity on the network will be deemed "roaming." I remember seeing an option somewhere to turn roaming data off, but cannot find it again. I would suggest turning off the network completely if you plan on going international. Maybe set up a google talk account to do your texting on wifi.

 

[dakster]

This is what I do when going overseas with the droid, just to be safe. Leaves the CDMA radio on in case I want to text if there's service, and still allows the GPS to get a lock in standalone mode (CDMA voice radio has to be active to get the initial lock, I use Maverick Pro for maps saved to the SD card)

Airplane mode disables both data and voice radios.

To disable data:

- Open dialer
- Dial *#*#4636#*#* - 'Phone Info' screen appears
- Press Menu button
- Tap on More
- Tap Disable data connection

Simply reverse the steps to re-enable your data connection

 

[Pancake]

Hey mate, I am traveling internationally (France, Italy, others) this summer and have faced this issue myself.

The unfortunate thing about traveling with a cell is you pay ridiculous costs for using the phone's network. Fortunately, the droid picks up WIFI, so you are correct in saying that you could put the phone in airplane mode, thus ignoring the phone's network and using only wifi. That's what I am doing - completely free and works fine. Then, you can make calls over something like Fring (Skype alternative - Skype doesn't support calls over wifi), or any other VOIP app.

As far as texts go, if you can find a service with which to send texts online, you can do it over wifi, provided the ship has wifi. There are many - I can't suggest any personally, as I haven't used any - but if you search for "send texts online" on Google you should get a whole slew of them. But it all revolves around access to wifi, because that's the only way to access those services.

Hope that helps, good luck, and bon voyage!