I’m with 3, and I’m going to belgium over the weekend. I’ve seen all the call and text charges, but what about data, do I still get to use my monthly allowance, or will I be charged for any data I use? I can’t find anything mentioned,, so I’m assuming it will just be part of my monthly allowance…

dunno, but I’d check with 3 if I were you. Heard stories about people getting bills for hundreds of pounds down to data use abroad.

Edit

3 Abroad

£1.28 per Mb in the EU

Danger, Will Robinson.

Typically, data roaming is terrifyingly expensive. Personally I’d switch it off completely if I took my phone abroad. I’d check with 3 first at the very least.

aah, just seen, its 1.28 a MB, up to a max of 45 quid.

so another question, how much ‘data’ does soemthing like cyclemeter use? surely its just GPS, which is free?

Switch off your data connection and see if it stops working?

yeah, that seems to work, turned off everything, put it in airplane mode and it still got a gps signal.
cheers all

I tend to switch mine off when abroad and then use Wifi in hotels etc to access emails. That way, the largest amount of data usage is done free! Then, once I’ve got my emails through on the wifi, switch on phone connection and check any voice/text messages. Turn ’em all off then repeat as required. Checking emails twice a day or so in this way is pretty effective most of the time, I find.

CFH +1. Data is really expensive when roaming. Also note that you will pay to receive both calls and texts, although you may be able to get some kind of roaming tariff to get round that

Company SIM into personal mobile here 🙂 – but then I never get to go on holiday abroad, only work and I like the apps on my phone better than the Blackberry in the evening.

so another question, how much ‘data’ does soemthing like cyclemeter use? surely its just GPS, which is free?

Normal GPS doesn’t use any data – it doesn’t download or upload anything from t’internet, it just listens to radio broadcasts from satellites.

But beware of apps that stream maps etc from the internet as you go – that’ll use tons of data and will really hurt.

You don’t say what phone you are on, but FWIW I use the “MotionX GPS” app on the iPhone*.

It lets you pre-load maps for a very large area while you are still at home on wi-fi, so you don’t need to hit any data while you are out and about – and it uses map data from OpenCycleMap so it has important stuff like pubs marked.

(*other smartphones are available)

O2 are good in this respect. Roaming charges capped at £40 per month. £6 per meg but you stop getting charged at £40 but you can still use up to 50 meg.