Since 2017, traveling in the European Union (EU) means being able to use our mobile data with total freedom. In other words, roaming no longer exists for its member countries. But we must take into account that it continues to exist for other states that are not within the EU..
If we are going to travel to a country that does not belong to the European Union, the first thing we should do is check the website of our mobile phone operator or call directly . There we will say where we are going and if we need to have data roaming. Its activation, in some cases, must be double: by the provider, but also by yours from the mobile phone itself. It is important to check with our company what we must do to have data abroad and if they are going to charge us an additional fee for it.
How to activate data roaming on an Android phone
If we are going to travel to a country that is within the European Union (remember that the United Kingdom is no longer a member, so you must be careful when activating it if you are going, for example, on a trip to London) we must activate data roaming to that we can continue to have internet on our phone..
To do this, on an Android phone, we must go to the settings and in ' SIM information and settings ' (depending on the mobile manufacturer this may vary a bit) activate 'Data roaming'. However, we recommend calling our mobile internet operator and asking if we have roaming activated . There are cases in which we must be activated in order to have data outside our country.
Do I have other alternatives to stay connected?
If what we are looking for is to stay connected and we cannot activate roaming , the public Wi-Fi network will be our ally. In this case we can use this tool to call through applications such as WhatsApp. Of course, connecting through a public Wi-Fi network is not very secure, so we recommend using it only to collect destination information , call through apps or any other operation that does not involve the exchange of sensitive data, such as online purchases ..
If we do not want to do without the data connection, but we want to maintain a reasonable cost, we can contract a prepaid card with one of the operators of the country we are visiting . This is the cheapest option, but it involves changing the SIM card and phone number. It is very convenient to continue using the data and also for communications with our friends and relatives in the country of origin, but notify them of the number change.
If we are not going to be able to connect to the internet in the destination country, it can also be useful to save all the information that we are going to need during the trip in applications such as Pocket. Thanks to it we will be able to save websites that we will later consult without the need for internet. In addition, we cannot forget to download maps on Google Maps so that we can later drive without problems even if we do not have data.
Pictures | Alexandr Podvalny