How Does International Cell Calling Works?
For the seasoned business traveler, there is no item as essential as a good cell phone. Being able to reach out to clients, connect to the office, coordinate with team members, and stay in touch with loved ones make traveling so much easier for the away professional; but, in this world of different styles and different choices, picking the right phone and the right calling plan is essential. Choosing poorly can lead to exorbitant rates, dropped call, and denial of service—all of which could lead to a reduction in productivity and substantial financial losses.
While most cell phone service providers offer a form of international long distance, no common use cellphone can connect outside of North America without piggybacking on a host network and tallying high roaming and conversion charges—which can reach as much as $5 a minutes. In North America (Canada, the United States, and Mexico), cell phones uses CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) to access the calling grid. This convention is also used in New Zealand, Taiwan, China, most of Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Korea. CDMA takes the digitized data from the cellphone and spread it out throughout the available bandwidth with a GPS (Ground Positioning Satellite)-set time stamp. CDMA is a spread spectrum transmission protocol over a wide-band, which allows multiple calls to share the same bandwidth; a CDMA cellphone receives all call data within the wide-band, but filters out what doesn’t have the corresponding time stamp. Many modern cellphones are third generation wide-band CDMA, or 3G. For CDMA to work, the cellphone and cell towers must have unrestricted access to the GPS system.
GSM (Global System for Mobile communications), however, is narrow-band. Relying on heavy encryption, GSM phones transmit on a dedicated section of the bandwidth for the length of the call. These phones are used heavily within Europe, Asia, and Africa; and to a lesser degree in the United States, Canada, and the Pacific Rim. What particularly makes these phones attractive is that most of these phones use a removable SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) card to store access codes and user data. These small plastic cards can be easily installed and exchanged, and these cards allow the same phone to be used with different wireless service providers. These phones are known as unlocked phones, for no cellular service mandates a cellular service on them.
GSM operates in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands in Europe and Asia. American-made GSM phones operate in the 850 MHZ and 1900 MHz bands, making them inoperable and non-compatible outside of North America. If a traveler was to buy a GSM cellphone for use in Europe or Asia, a quad-band multiple band phone that operates on both American and European frequencies is a must. Also, a multiple mode phone that supports AMPS and TDMA can be a life-saver—the phone can still be used in areas where digital service is not available. The best possible solution is a dual-sim, quad-band, dual-mode GSM phone; such a phone can allow the cellphone to use the local networks with a local account while maintaining an American telephone number.
Even with all of these tips, traveling with an international cell phone plan still has hitches. Traveling to an area that does not have a roaming agreement with your carrier will result in high charges, and calls from ships will be expensive regardless of your gear’s setup. The best advice is to be prepared: research the telecommunication grid in the areas you will be traveling with. Make sure your carrier offer service to those areas, or make sure you can easily locate a sim-card. Take the time to make sure your phone’s charger works with the local electrical set-up and plugs. Test the quality of your phone’s audio in both high and low signal strength areas.
By knowing what his cellphone’s capabilities are in the area where he is traveling, the traveler is more likely to be productive and safe when traveling. More importantly, he is more likely to have fun with one less thing to worry about, and that what matters most.
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