Ways to avoid huge cell phone bills while traveling overseas.

When traveling abroad, there are ways to avoid cell phone bills shocks by just doing a few simple things.
The first one is the most obvious and consist of simply turning off your phone specially if you own a smart one that can access the Internet. Turning it off will prevent apps downloaded in it to roam the Internet without your knowledge.
For travelers who own an iPhone, AT&T advices its users to "reset their usage tracker to zero so they can keep an eye on new charges, and make it a point to use Wi-Fi instead of their phones' 3G services to access the Web" according tp the New York Times. That option may work for casual Web users who access the Internet for light things such as checking e-mails. For those with heavy surfing, AT&T offers data roaming for the iPhone and other smartphones that "provides 20 megabytes of data usage within 90 countries for $24.99 per month, and up to 200 megabytes for $199.99 per month" says the New York Times.
Secondly, if traveling abroad and in need to make phone calls, the first order of business is to get the right kind of phone. That is important because outside the U.S.A., many countries use a different wirless technology incompatible with most phones from the States. So it will be helpfull to check with the service provider to see if its phones work outside the country.
Verizon Wireless for instance do not use the GSM technology generally found oversea. To make up with that, Verizon Wireless have phones designed to work outside the U.S.A. available for loan for free for people that have been subscribers six months or longer.
AT&T and T-Mobile on the other hand, have phones compatible with GSM technogy more prevalent in other countries.
"Another option is to buy an inexpensive travel phone from a company like Telestial (telestial.com) or Planet Omni (planetomni.com). They typically cost less than $50. For example, Planet Omni’s Kit V520 ($49) offers a dual-band GSM phone, SIM card with both a United States phone number and a global phone number, and $5 in airtime. The service allows you to receive free incoming calls in France, Italy, Spain and Britain on the global number, and free voice mail in 60 countries. Costs for outgoing calls depend on the country. For example, an outgoing call from France to a United States landline is 99 cents per minute, while a call to a mobile phone is $1.49 per minute. Telestial’s Passport package (starting at $99) provides free incoming calls in Europe, as well as calls back to the United States for 49 cents per minute." according to the New York Times.
Thirdly, savvy international travelers will choose the option of changing their original SIM card to one from the country they are traveling to. Doing so, all their incoming calls would be free while the outgoing ones will be billed at a much lower rate.
Fourth, An increasingly popular option for making phone calls while abroad, is to use an Internet based telephone service or VoIP. One of the most popular of those services are Skype or Truephone

For more, see NewYorkTimes.com