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Is there something I have to do to make sure my phone works on a trip (and doesn’t cost me a lot of money)?
Always ask:
I take a vacation in Türkiye, Greece and Italy for a few weeks and it is the first time that I will travel without my work phone. Will my Galaxy S23 work without costing me an arm and a leg for international roaming of AT&T? Is there something I should do before leaving to make sure?
THANKS
Hello! I am jealous that you catch the Mediterranean sun while I fight the snow and the cup here on the east coast. You could not have chosen a better place to spend a few weeks and I bet you have a good time.
For a quick answer to your question – you may be able to burst a local prepaid SIM card in your phone and get around these ultra costly international roaming costs at the price of not having your normal phone number for a few weeks. It all depends on if your phone is locked by the region.
Unless you specifically bought a unlocked phone (something you should always do when you can) from your operator (there are ways to check if your phone is unlocked), it is likely that several of the bands radio are locked in the firmware. They are still there and capable of working, they just need the lock to be deleted.
Your operator can do it in a store with technicians and the right software, but doing it can be difficult; They would prefer that you pay roaming costs or buy an additional international plan module.
It is actually not a bad idea in this case. If your phone is locked by the region in North America, spending about $ 10 more a day is the simple way to use your phone almost anywhere without huge roaming costs. It is certainly less intimidating than unlocking radio bands yourself via the phone service menu.
If you are like me, however, you prefer to play with things rather than giving additional money. The good news is that it has All were understood And you can find complete instructions to do it yourself. Once done, you can bring in a local SIM card and leave. You may not have the fastest network connection, but everything will work.
What you will do is enter a “secret code” in the phone number to reach a technical menu that allows you to lock and unlock radio frequencies. It’s not difficult, but it can be intimidating. This is why I mentioned how much the addition of an international daily international module to your plan is easier. You can either pay $ 100 or two per week, or go through a set of tedious and complex instructions.
There is a third option – Google FI. If your phone is finished (a type of locking different from the region of the region; phone manufacturers and carriers love to lock things, apparently), you can buy a month of Google Fi service, which works without additional costs in Three countries mentioned to you. You don’t have to sign a contract, and when you are done, you just don’t renew it.
You will have a different number, just as you would use a local SIM card, but you will not pay a lot of surprise costs or daily costs to use your phone without roaming costs.
In addition to ensuring that you have activated a kind of network connection, there is nothing else to do. Your phone will automatically adjust things like time and get its new location without doing anything and it should work exactly the same way as home.
Now have fun in the sun for us all stuck here in winter weather!
