How to Make Cheap International Cell Phone Calls

How to Make Cheap International Cell Phone Calls Lindsay Smith: Every once in a while we like to go out to the viewers to answer your tech questions. And today we've got a question in our inbox from Patrick from Edmonton, Alberta. Patrick says “I travel a lot internationally and my cell phone bills are horrendous. Do you know of any way I can make cheap international cell phone calls?” Mike Agerbo: Well this is actually a great question. I remember back a few years ago I was traveling in Europe by UK, France. My cell phone bill at the end over $1,700.00, oh God. Well, you know to combat that I did a few things. I started buying those pager talk phones in the different countries that I went to and basically filled it up with the recharge cards and that dramatically reduced my cell phone bill. But there's something that we came across called Max Roam this is kind of a unique solution that might save you a heap of money especially if you're traveling to a number of different countries. Lindsay Smith: Yeah, what's neat about this is it's basically a sim card that can't tell which country you're in. You basically can buy it online for 25 euro or pounds which is— Mike Agerbo: Euros. Lindsay Smith: Euros, yes, euros and clearly I'm an international traveler. Mike Agerbo: Well that’s about $45.00 Canadian roughly. Lindsay Smith: Yes, yes, it about $45.00 Canadian and you can basically plug this sim card into any unlocked GSM phone. Mike Agerbo: Well that’s important thing to consider. So in Canada, the only GSM carrier would be Rogers and Fidel. That being said Tales and Belle, they do have a specific world traveler phone. I believe it’s a Black Berry phone that is GSM so it would work in that particular phone as well. But beyond that, you also have to make sure that the phone is unlocked and this is something you can research online. There's number of people probably in your city that can do it and I think use around $25.00 to $50.00 to unlock the phone. And after that’s done, you can use this particular sim card and it's pretty powerful. Lindsay Smith: I mean what's really neat about is it basically plugs into the back of your phone and just let you tuck that in there Mike. It goes underneath their battery. I see you plug it in there; you put your battery back on top and put it all together and then you basically log into the Max Roam website and you pick the area or the country that you're in. So any calls that you're making within that area are essentially local calls. And the way it works it's on the credit system so Max Roam basically goes out in it and it finds the cheapest local rates. And basically for every minute that you use, it takes off a number of credits. Mike Agerbo: Well, the important thing to realize is that you actually get to pick like specific local numbers like they give you a few free ones to start I think like US, UK, France, Poland and Italy. If you do want a Canadian dedicated number, I think it's an extra two euros a month. But after that, when anyone’s calling you for example if you're in the UK, they’d actually be dialing a UK number. And they’ve handy little rate calculator right up on their website and you can calculate how much it is going to cost per minute depending where you're phoning from and to. I did find looking at the rates going from US to Canada. It wasn’t that competitive but when you looked at some of the European countries or even Asian countries, you do save a lot of money. And you couldn’t do things like sending text messages and stuff as well. They’ve got some rates for that and it's really easy to check voicemail as well. I think it’s a *151. Once you’ve got it going, it’s pretty to use. The websites is a great resource for checking out the rates and also topping up your natural card as well. Female: If you’ve got a question you’d like answered, send it to us at inbox at getconnectedtvshow.com.