Tips for Using Cell Phones Overseas
Get an international number tied to your cell phone
A new service called Magellan (magnumbers.com) allows you to purchase an international phone number to link to your cell while traveling, so friends and family can contact you at their local rates. Get either a plan with a fixed monthly price or one with a local access number and a Magellan extension. Another service, Maxroam (maxroam.com), from Irish company Cubic Telecom, lets you accomplish the same thing by buying a SIM card for your unlocked GSM mobile and adding up to 50 numbers in 28 countries (for about $9.95 per number each per month). You can give out different numbers and accept all the calls on the same phone for about $42; roaming charges vary.
The upside: Magellan plans start at just $9.95 for an access number; your friends are charged only their own local rates. With Maxroam, your sound quality is likely to be very good, since you use a SIM card, rather than a phone service that re-routes your call several times.
The downside: Both services are better for expats and students than international travelers, since it costs others less to call you than it does for you to call home. And outbound calls can be pricey: using Magellan, for instance, an outbound call from your mobile number forwarded to Argentina costs 25 cents per minute. Also, both services are so new they don't have a track record yet.
