Global Roaming Question

[Bitterman]

My wife is leaving for Italy for a 10 day trip this Friday. I signed her up for Verizons 100/100/100 Global plan. That's plenty of talk time and data for 10 days plus she won't be using the phone much outside of the hotels at night (they're hiking during the day). The hotels have wifi.

The question is even though we signed up for the global plan do we still have to turn on Global Roaming on the phone? By default it is set to deny Global Roaming but is our global plan a "roaming" plan. I don't see anything on the VZW website that tells us to turn on global roaming, only that you have to have a global plan. Just trying to cover all bases before she gets over there.

TIA,

Doug

 

[Hgouck]

Yes you will need to turn on data roaming

JMHO

 

[doogald]

She may want to go into settings / data usage, tap the menu control top right, and turn off background updates while she is in Italy. 100 MB can happen fast. You get a notification you can tap to turn it back on when you're ready.

That keeps apps from updating over mobile data when they are not open on the display. So, for example, it'll stop Facebook from updating when it is not the app that's open in the display.

 

[T-Rob]

She may want to go into settings / data usage, tap the menu control top right, and turn off background updates while she is in Italy. 100 MB can happen fast. You get a notification you can tap to turn it back on when you're ready.

That keeps apps from updating over mobile data when they are not open on the display. So, for example, it'll stop Facebook from updating when it is not the app that's open in the display.

Doogald has a very good point, but you can also just turn off your data when you're not using to save on data. But, he's right...when data is on, all of your apps will pull in data. I'm stationed in Germany...when I travel outside of Germany, I usually sign up for a 150 MBs. I doesn't last long at all. LOL But, like you said, there are a lot of places that have free WiFi...

 

[Hgouck]

Management of your connection is key to staying in the 100MB. I would only turn data on when she want to use it and definitely follow the other posters advice.

JMHO

 

[doogald]

I was in Europe for 11 days last fall and when I left I had used 98 MB. It can be done. Again, the key for me was turning off background updates when I was on mobile data, and turning off sync (the same page I listed before) unless I was on wifi. Even if she goes over 100 MB, it was only $25, but I would have been mad if I'd used only a few MB over 100.

My wife's iPhone had the same plan and she barely used any data.

 

[Bitterman]

Thanks for the tips everybody. I printed her out a cheat sheet with instructions....starting with turning off mobile network data before she turns the phone off for the plane ride out of NY. That way when she turns the phone on in Italy it won't immediately start using data. She'll be too busy during the day to be messing with the phone other than maybe taking some pictures to upload later at the hotel so I think she'll be fine.

I also did find the exact answer to my initial question. It was in the FAQ's, just had to scroll down a bunch more:

19) Do I need to change any device settings to connect globally with my Global Phone or global data device?



It depends on your device. Some devices set global roaming off by default. See your User Guide for instructions to turn global roaming on.

If your device's default is global roaming on, your device to automatically chooses a global network when you're roaming abroad.

In the countries listed below, you may have to manually choose a global network to use global data on your device, depending upon the availability of voice/data in the network that you're connected to. Please refer to your phone's User Guide for details on how to manually choose the network mode.
•Bangladesh
•Belize
•Canada
•Indonesia
•Macau
•Mexico
•Taiwan
•Venezuela
•Yemen

So I did go into her phone settings and turned on Global Roaming. Thanks again for the help everybody.