Spotlight on roaming charges

Out at the airport last week to welcome my niece back into the country, I went looking for a prepay SIM so she could switch from her Beijing number back to the local mobile network.

The only outlet at the domestic terminal was charging $65 - almost double the price it would be available for outside the airport precinct.

Obviously the Auckland Airport Company considers all travellers to be captive cows to be milked of as much cash as possible while passing through its monopoly, to a level of rapacity only matched by the way mobile phone networks treat their roaming customers.

What to do about it?

For the traveller, one answer has been to pick up a pre-pay SIM card on arrival at the destination.

That could require some research online before leaving to check out the deals, including whether the prices charged at the airport are reasonable, or if you should wait until you spot a hole in the wall newsagent with a window full of ads for cheap phonecards.

It also means, if you are a Telecom customer, buying an unlocked GSM phone before you go or on arrival.

The advantage is you are not paying cellphone casino (the house always wins) every time you use your phone.

You no longer pay to receive calls, and calling out may be a tenth of the cost of going through your normal provider and their partners in greed.

The disadvantage (or possible advantage) is you are using a number no one knows, so you have to brush up on how to remotely access your existing account and change the voicemail message to give your new temporary number.

Then you can leave your New Zealand mobile switched off, and check the messages to see who you need to call back - for cents rather than dollars a minute on your pre-pay.

Artist Julian Dashper exhibits regularly in Australia, and some years ago bought an Australian SIM for his mobile.

"I used to use payphones, but the cards would get stuck in the callbox," says Dashper.

"Then I tried hiring a mobile at the airport each time, but that was expensive, and you had a different number each time.

"Now I just pop the SIM into the phone when I arrive in Australia. As long as I top it up at least once a year, it keeps going. I can make a 10 minute call back to New Zealand for something like $4.

"People over there think I'm based in Australia, because I have a local number," he says.

Australia has competition in the mobile phone market, so it could pay to shop around, or look at a site like prepaidgsm.net to see the best deals.

People travelling in groups to Australia could also benefit from Vodafone's package offering free minutes to other phones on the Vodafone network.

Martin Lewis's website moneysavingexpert.com has some useful tips and tools to help identify the pre-pay services in various countries.

Many of the European-built services are built around Liechtenstein mobile phone companies, which don't charge for inbound calls.

An industry is growing up around repackaging their SIMS, including hacks so calls to your existing number in a European country is diverted to the SIM - we can only hope.

Roaming costs won't come down without a mix of competition and regulation. Roaming charges for visitors to New Zealand are among the highest in the world, because Vodafone enjoys a monopoly on its network and socks other providers a huge whack for access.

The European Commission has been looking at international roaming charges.

The commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, wants to cut roaming charges within the European Union to a maximum of 30 percent above the wholesale price for the call.

The commission will today vote on the proposed changes, which would be implemented over the next year.

In a bid to head off regulations, major operators like T-Mobile, Orange Telecom Italia, Telenor, TeliaSonera and Wind, which together have almost 200 million mobile users across Europe, have agreed to cap the average wholesale rates they offer each for roaming.

Another option is to bypass the telephone networks and go direct to the internet, using services like Skype.

CallPlus chief executive Martin Wylie says he often uses CallPlus's iTalk internet protocol phone service.

"As long as you can get a broadband connection, you can phone either through your WiFi handset or through a software phone on your PC," Wylie says.

"That means you can leave your cellphone off, collect voicemail and call people back."

It also means watching for broadband access at reasonable rates.

While some hotels seem to treat internet access as a high-end luxury to be gouged out of guests, other forward thinking companies see it as a competitive point and offer it free or at a price most of us are willing to pay.