The International Student Blog

As we highlighted in our previous post, mobile phone companies tend to hit those who travel or study abroad with high roaming costs if you use your mobile phone when abroad. Our post identified some key areas to help students minimize these costs and avoid any high charges or unexpected phone bills.

Of course, the key to using your phone abroad is that its easy and convenient. That is why we have developed a range of sim card options for students coming to study or travel in the USA that are both easy to use, and are extremely cost effective – in fact you will probably not find a cheaper option online anywhere! All you need to do is make sure you have a compatible tri or quadband gsm mobile phone that is unlocked, and you can purchase one of our sims, pop it in your phone and you benefit from:

1. A Local USA Number
2. Cheap Local and Competitive International Rates
3. You Avoid ALL Roaming Charges

We now have two options for those needing a USA sim card – a T-Mobile USA Sim Card and TuYo Mobile USA Sim Card. Both cards offer some fantastic benefits such as low international calls, a set $1 per day unlimited calling price for all calls and much more. Both cards can be ordered online, quickly and easily and there is 2 to 3 day delivery schedule for orders that are shipped to the USA and 4 to 6 days delivery time for anywhere in the world.

For more information about our USA Sim Card options and all our other international sim card options please see our website for more information and pricing:

http://www.internationalstudent.com/sim_cards/

We all love our mobile phones, they provide such a high level of convenience that most people do not want to go without them. However, although you may travel well, its most likely that your existing mobile phone provider and contract in your home country will not travel well with you. As any traveler will tell you, when you use your mobile phone abroad you will be hit with high roaming charges that can really start to add up if you use your phone for any length of time.

To avoid any surprises in your phone bill, there are a few things you can do to minimize your costs and make sure you have the best calling options available to you. Before you travel abroad, you should:

1. Call Current Provider – before you leave, you should call your current phone provider and find out firstly if you can use your phone abroad, secondly find out what the charges will be (so there will be no surprises if you do end up using your phone) and thirdly ask if your phone is locked or unlocked, and if the latter you should request your phone unlock code. If they do not provide this to you, there are many sources online to unlock your phone – Google Search is a good start!
2. Do Some Research – after calling your provider, you will most likely find out that your charges when abroad are going to be high. The best way to avoid this is to purchase a sim card for the country you are traveling to, this way you will have a local number, cheap calls locally and depending on the country you are traveling to, you may have free inbound calls.
3. International Calls – of course, if you are traveling, you will want to be calling home and people around the world. The best and cheapest way to do this is through a VOIP solution such as Skype and Gizmo which you can run for free on your laptop, and will offer low cost rates per minute to countries around the world. If you do not have access to a laptop, consider purchasing an international calling card, or a sim card with international calling services built in. It may be slightly more expensive, but will be very easy as you can call directly from your mobile phone. Please also be aware that when using a calling card from a prepaid phone, you will be using up your prepaid credit and your international calling credit.

Hopefully with these few simple steps, you will be able to avoid the high roaming charges that most providers will impose on you when you travel abroad. If you need a range of sim cards, we have a range available that can be purchased online quickly and easily. For example our T-Mobile USA Sim Card offers some excellent benefits and can be delivered anywhere in the world!

As you head back to school there are always things that you put off doing, or simply forget about entirely – well now you can do them last minute and we have some great resources for you….

International Student Loans: Student loans for international students studying in the US or Canada, and for US students abroad. Apply online for up to $30,000 per year.
International Student Insurance: Student Secure is comprehensive health and travel insurance for students outside their home country, meets most school requirements.
International Calling Cards: Keep in touch with your family and friends with low cost international calls from your mobile or home phone
USA Sim Card and Mobile Phones: Stay mobile with a sim card or mobile phone for the USA and get a local US number to cut your roaming charges…..

and with any new school, or back to school experience, its a time to make new friends:

-Join our Facebook Group and introduce yourself to our current members

-Participate in our Forums and chat with other students