How to Be Reached Abroad and 3 Ways to Avoid Roaming Charges
New York, NY (PRWEB) January 30, 2014 -- My friend Johnny recently came back from a 2 week trip in South Africa. His enthusiasm for the beauty of the country quickly transformed into a nightmare when he received a huge bill from his wireless carrier almost equal to the total amount of his journey! This happened because he used his smartphone abroad without first taking a preventive measure. He was extremely surprised when opening his phone bill as he made and received calls for just few minutes each day.
How many times do we hear such stories and what can be done to avoid such a terrible shock?
Being reached abroad by your parents, your business or your credit card company is becoming a necessity in a super connected world.
Anyone should know that when going to a foreign country, the price of an inbound or out bound call can be as much as $3.95 per minute depending on your carrier.
Use your phone for 20 minutes a day and after 2 weeks your bill will be well above one thousand dollars!
So what are the best solutions available to avoid a bank account in the red?
The first and easiest solution is to simply put your phone on airplane mode before leaving your home country and to not use it during the trip. While a secure financial solution, travelers today want to keep connected not just for an urgent matter from home or work.
The second solution is to buy a local Sim card. However, the problem with this is that many smartphones are locked by the carrier. Unlocking the smartphone (on the web or at local stores) can bring trouble to your operating system. Besides that, you the traveller receives calls that actually come through a local number from the country you are visiting. This can cost quite a lot of money to the caller back home trying to reach you. It will also cost you and arm and a leg to call back home.
Some people rent a second phone, but then you have to transfer all your important phone numbers, learn the quirks that each phone has and so on. Not a very convenient solution but at least budget controlled.
The third solution is to take advantage of the development of Wi-Fi all over the world and use a VoIP provider. Wi-Fi has become a commodity. A recent study from the web site hotels.com pointed out that the first parameter people are checking when booking a hotel is the availibility of Free WiFi.
So people use services like Skype or Viber. But unless you buy some credit with those providers your correspondent needs to be on Skype or Viber at the same time as you. What if this is not the case? What about your mother or your work associates? What if you have to call your bank or credit card company? Are they all on Skype or Viber, and at the same time as you?
How can you receive an urgent phone call from your company, your bank or your family?
To provide an easy solution to these questions, we created i-Mobb, the Free Roaming App. I-Mobb which allows you to make and receive unlimited calls on your smartphone without any roaming charges for the duration of your trip abroad at no extra cost for you or your correspondent. All this for a nominal subscription, equivalent to only few minutes from your current carrier One week US plan, which allows you unlimited calls to your smartphone and unlimited calls to 60 countries will cost you only $9.99.
i-Mobb assigns each user a domestic phone number and provides unlimited calls back to the user’s home country and 59 additional countries.
The user just has to forward all of his phone numbers to this local phone number and create a voice mail associated to the new local phone number provided.
Then, when the user is nearby a Wi-Fi connection, he can receive calls without additional charge. No extra cost for the use and no extra cost for his correspondent. If he is not available, the call will reach his new Voice Mail and he will be able to retrieve all his messages for no charge the next time he will be near by a Wi-Fi hotspot.
A very convenient, simple and inexpensive solution to make and receive calls abroad with no roaming fees as if you are at home.
Following a successful launch in 8 major countries, USA, France, UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Canada and Japon, i-Mobb recently extended its service to residents of 30 more countries among them South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Bulgaria, Poland, Mexico... This development positions i-Mobb as a unique application for world travelers.
For more information about i-Mobb, visit the company’s website at http://www.i-Mobb.com. The app designer is also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/IMobbTheGlobe and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/IMobbtheGlobe.
Bernard Drai, I-Mobb, LLC, http://www.i-Mobb.com, + 1 973 405 4807, [email protected]
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