Saving money on Wireless Roaming with Android, Blackberry and iPhone from USA to UK

I was planning to go on vacation to the UK for about 10 days and so looked for various articles to point me to the most economical way to roam in the UK for three of our family phones running on Android, Blackberry and iPhone. I didn’t find a lot of useful information before going there but learnt some useful information on my trip that I want to share in this blog and hope anyone traveling from the USA to UK will find it useful. I also think the same information will apply to other European countries as well.

So, here are various considerations in making the right decision on selecting your roaming service provider.

• US Mobile Operator’s Roaming Pricing
• Is your handset capable of Roaming?
• Is your handset Carrier Locked?
• Duration of trip
• Voice Roaming
• Data Roaming – Android and iPhone
• Data Roaming – Blackberry

US Mobile Operator’s Roaming Pricing

AT&T, Sprint , T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless all offer international voice roaming and their rates vary from $1 to $2/minute.  Additionally, data roaming charges are in the range of $1-$1.50/MB. AT&T used to offer $69/Month unlimited data roaming for Blackberry but it not available anymore on its web site.

Is your handset capable of Roaming?

Most of handsets sold by AT&T and T-Mobile are capable of roaming on most of the networks in the UK and the rest of Europe. For handsets sold by Sprint and Verizon, only quadband 3G handsets are capable of roaming on the European networks.  Both Sprint and Verizon offer some Blackberry handsets that are quadband but none of the Android handsets on Sprint and Verizon websites are quadband and so unlikely to be suitable for roaming on GSM networks in Europe.

Is your handset Carrier Locked?

Most US mobile operators lock handsets in such a way that these subsidized handsets only work on their network. However, many operators offer unlock codes with AT&T and T-Mobile providing it free after 3 months of service except on iPhone. The good news for iPhone users is the availability of many public domain and paid tools to do carrier unlock which is not the same as jailbreak. In London, we could get this service from any of the  shops selling SIM cards for less than $10.

Duration of trip

If you are going on a business trip for a couple of days and not likely to visit the same country anytime soon, go with the plan offered by your mobile operator as the hassle of going on a pre paid plan is not worth the trouble unless you are going to be on the phone constantly.

Voice Roaming

If you only care about voice roaming then the best thing to do is to buy any local SIM card. Insert it into your unlocked GSM phone and you are in business. There are many voice plans with calls within UK costing over 25cents/min but offering less than 5cents/min calls to any international location including the US. The only downside is that you will have a new number but for the savings offered, it was worth taking the chance.

Data Roaming – Android and iPhone

I found T-Mobile SIM cards offering data services at a very reasonable price and configured automatically on all three phones I tried it on. On the other hand, O2 card didn’t work on my Android or Blackberry and every time I called the O2 operator, more money was taken out of my pre-paid account.The pre-paid T-Mobile SIM offered almost unlimited weekly data plan for less than $7.

Data Roaming – Blackberry

Most operators in the UK don’t support Blackberry on prepaid and if Blackberry/Outlook integrated email is needed, you have no choice but to stick with your US SIM card and pay for data roaming. However, I could get Internet connectivity on Blackberry and was able to access my Gmail and do browsing on it with T-Mobile SIM card.

Conclusion

If you are going to be roaming in the UK for more than couple of days, it is much more economical to use pre paid SIM than to pay large roaming fees to the US operators with only disadvantage being a new number. For Blackberry users, you can get voice and data roaming but not Blackberry messaging connectivity on a pre-paid SIM. For Android and iPhone users, pre paid SIM is the best economical option and gives you full connectivity at a very reasonable price.

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Can you survive going back to Blackberry after iPhone?

I liked my iPhone, but for reasons that belong in a different blog, I switched back to Blackberry after almost a year. First, it was difficult but having been used to Applications, I started discovery of app store on Blackberry and was pleasantly surprised and somewhat disappointed. This blog is about my journey back to Blackberry for now.

Gmail Integration

First positive change was recognition of Gmail by Blackberry in the form of a Gmail connector that made it easier to use. On the other hand, native Gmail app from Google still doesn’t work well on Blackberry as delete keys don’t work, it is slow, doesn’t do push and consumes more battery. Similarly, contact and calendar sync work fairly well.

User Interface

Lots of nice icons have been created on Blackberry Curve but their usability is poor especially after working with beautifully designed icons of iPhone. Most of the time you have to read the description of the icons to understand what they mean – case in point Application, Games, Downloads, Setup just look so similar. Finding App Store on your Blackberry is a challenge – It has Applications and then Downloads menus. App Store is hidden under Downloads and that is where Apps come before you decide to move it elsewhere.  I just wish Blackberry pays attention to these details as much as it has paid attention to Email and the curves on its keyboard.

How many Apps does one need?

Coming from Apple iPhone experience, one needs lots and lots of apps and I had over 30 when I switched. However, Blackberry made me realize that I only really used less than 10 apps and so I came looking for applications that I really needed.

Communication/Social Applications

Besides Email, IM, and Facebook, Twitter was the missing piece and Blackberry just released a native app for Twitter that takes advantage of its push technology. It crashes sometimes but does work very well.

Navigation Applications

Google Maps is available and works well except that it drains battery if left on for a long time. Needless to say it is not as intuitive as Google Maps on iPhone. There is a good new app called Poynt that gives you neighborhood restaurants, movie theatres, gas stations and white/yellow pages.

Games Applications

Needless to say, there is no match here between iPhone and Blackberry and a lot of it has to do with the touch interface, developers’ focus and the target users. Blackberry now has many more native games besides Brick Breaker and a whole lot of third party apps are also available in their store.

Entertainment Applications

Pandora and Stitcher radio applications are both available on Blackberry and work well. The missing piece is an ability to have Apple’ iPod like functionality that can play the music from my iTunes library.

Conclusion

I am comfortable using Blackberry with my repertoire of  applications but just wish that browser experience was better on Blackberry; a feature I sorely missed in switching from iPhone.

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Confessions of a Blackberry Addict – Two miserable weeks with iPhone and then…

3 Blackberrys, 6 years and time for renewal of contract and hence decision time on whether to switch to iPhone or not! Despite my unpleasant experience at Apple Store, my kids convinced me to try iPhone in the name of coolness. I decided to give it a try for my 30 day trial and here are my findings.

First some reasons on why I even looked for alternatives to Blackberry after 6 years of great friendship

• After switching from Microsoft Entourage to Gmail, Blackberry sort of lost its advantage and got really slow to use
• With 3 browsers on my Blackberry – one from AT&T, second from RIM and third one from Opera, neither one really worked well
• Any third party app I loaded slowed the system dramatically

My first two weeks with iPhone were miserable at best. iPhone is a great platform but certainly not the most intuitive.

First, what I liked about the iPhone

• One of the most beautiful displays – emails and web pages really come alive and readable much like a laptop
• Best browser of any phone I have ever used – and believe me I have used many phones
• Best conferencing interface of any phone – even my mom can use it

Why was I miserable with iPhone in the first two weeks

• Very difficult to get to the top of the contacts and hence find a contact quickly and call
• Inability to make calls while driving except to the recent calls
• Typing without the keyboard
• Limited battery life

I was ready to return my iPhone until I met some friends who showed me some shortcuts that made things better. So much for intutiveness! For example:

• Right flick that brings search button – a universal search that can search contacts, email or calendar
• Getting used to Voice dialing and calling out names in the way my phone understands – now with 90% success rate of calling someone from my contacts while driving
• Just type and not worry about correcting until much later

Now with 30 days of usage behind me, I am turning to be an iPhone fan not fanatics. It is far from being an ideal phone but considering its other good features, I decided to keep it. Oh, yes I do have a 3GS!

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Blackberry Email, Yahoo Mail or Google Gmail? – Experience of a Blackberry (BB) User

RIM’s Blackberry was only an Enterprise cell phone and so most people used it with Blackberry Enterprise Server which provided over the air sync of Emails, Contacts and Calendar events with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Domino. In the era of iPhone hype, many people like me still use Blackberry to stay in sync and so I went exploring many choices for users without an Enterprise Server and/or Microsoft Outlook and here is what I found. I had to spend days researching these choices and hope this blog will help save time for many others and also wake up Google, RIM and Yahoo to act to make their products better.

Criteria

My criteria was simple – an ability to automatically sync our Email, Calendar and Contacts over the air preferably without paying any more than $30 we were already paying AT&T.

Blackberry Client

I could get a hosted BB Enterprise Server solution but most of them cost in excess of $10/month – this alternative was very familiar but I wanted something free and so didn’t go with this choice. Despite marketing towards consumer markets, RIM has sadly not provided any over-the-air solution to the sync problem outside of Microsoft Outlook.

Yahoo!Mail Client for Blackberry

I was using Yahoo! Mail as my personal email so that was my first choice. I downloaded Yahoo’s mobile client for Blackberry. The installation was simple and did sync my emails well except that its sync was delayed many times by much as three to four hours. However, trying to sync Contacts and Calendar proved to be too difficult and after repeated attempts and reading lots of documentation I decided to give that up. One good thing or bad thing is that this email client looks just like the Blackberry native email client and seems to be very CPU efficient and didn’t change battery life.

Gmail Client for Blackberry

My next choice was Gmail even though I still don’t like Gmail’s presentation of email in conversation threads. Downloading Google’s mobile client for Blackberry was easy enough though not as easy as Yahoo. Once I downloaded the Gmail client, I realized that it had a different user interface – similar to one on the PC. It was much better than BB Email client for reading newsletters as it cleared all kinds of web links and made emails lot more readable on the phone. Is someone from RIM listening?

Sync client from Google choked couple of times as I had too many contacts and it took a very long time but once it synced, it got better for any other changes.  While I was on Google site, I also downloaded Google Maps. Pretty soon, my Blackberry Curve started becoming slow and battery life reduced. So, I uninstalled Google Maps even though I really liked the app. Now, my Blackberry is still not as fast as it was with native Blackberry Email client but I can live with occasional slow downs and reduced battery life. The one thing that Google ignored is the delete key on the keyboard and for anyone used to that key it will be sorely missed. Also if you have many contacts, Gmail takes a long time in bringing up your contacts and seems like it goes to the network to fetch contacts unless you only keep most used contacts which are cached locally.

Conclusion

In short, I use Gmail on mobile and desktop and it automatically syncs everything well for me between my desktop and Blackberry. I have still kept my Yahoo client on the Blackberry for those times when Gmail slows down my Blackberry. Hopefully Google will fix this problem one day or Yahoo will wake up and do a good job in syncing Contacts and Calendar or better still RIM will wakeup and provide this service for all the non-enterprise customers before their value is completely diminished by Google.

Did you have different experiences. Share here in comments sections for others to benefit from!

R. Paul Singh

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