So you've shed your earthly possessions, found a location-independent way to brand a little coin, and freed up your schedule to cross some borders.

Now how practise you stay in touch?

We've come a long way since Martin Cooper fired upwardly the first cellphone in 1973, and if you think an international calling bill of fare is going to cut it, you lot're all the same behind the times. Luckily we've figured information technology all out for yous.

  •  Get all your calls, all the time
•  Pay almost nothing — no huge roaming and long distance bills
•  Get one number that will redirect to yous wherever y'all go
•  Check your voicemail from any computer continued to the Internet

With the correct telephone and service, yous tin can exist every bit accessible as yous are at home from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

1. Become an international phone

If you live exterior Northward America, chances are you're already using an international telephone. In the US, AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM like the rest of the world while Verizon and Dart apply CDMA, which is superior in many ways but makes your telephone a paperweight when you're globetrotting.

Yous want a quad-band phone with Wi-Fi and VOIP adequacy. The states GSM phones operate on the 850/1900 MHz frequencies and Europe's are 900/1800 MHz, so you need all four to be a proper nomad.

With Wi-Fi and VOIP, you can connect to wireless networks and route your calls through the Internet very cheaply. No worries if your phone doesn't have VOIP, it'll just price a little more.

I suggest Nokia's fantastic E series. Their latest models are perfect for our purposes. They accept SIP (the nearly popular VOIP protocol) clients built-in and then you tin can make and receive Internet calls exactly as you would with your everyday prison cell service.

Tynan uses the E90, which is more of a compact reckoner. Information technology has a huge screen and keyboard and everything you lot could possibly desire in a phone. It also looks similar Nokia used a leftover pattern from 2002 inspired by Zach Morris'south Motorola.

E90 evolution

The E61i is my phone of choice. Smaller screen and no GPS, just incredible battery life. And I have a GPS scout, so I'm not exactly doing without. My phone's lineage as well happens to be a little easier to trace.

E61i evolution

If buying a new phone only to travel seems similar a hassle I doubt you lot'll follow through with the rest, but there are a bunch of companies that rent them. American Limited can accommodate this for you also.

two. Go local prepaid service

Near every carrier offers prepaid service. Merely get into a retail location with your superphone in hand and they'll go you up and running.

Here in Panama it's around 25 cents a minute to make calls. But RECEIVING CALLS IS FREE!

The United states of america is unique in that minutes are billed to both the originator and recipient of a mobile phone call, but in virtually other countries only the originating political party pays. Makes more sense, doesn't it? Why should yous accept to pay if a telemarketer calls you outside of night & weekend minutes?

Nosotros tin can accept advantage of this — let'due south minimize our outbound calling.

3. Gear up an account with CallWithUs

CallWithUs is an awesome VOIP service. They road data over the Internet instead of through conventional voice networks, so information technology'southward less expensive and allows for more ways to become your calls.

It'due south got all the features we need and it'southward fashion less expensive than its competitors. Allow's compare prices in our plane ticket countries.

VOIP rates by provider

CallWithUs wins in EVERY Unmarried Country I've ever looked up.

Their website is pretty Spartan but everything we demand is easily accessed. For some reason they don't allow webmail addresses, so don't use a Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail account. Search for "free email forwarding" if this is a problem.

Sign in to your account and you'll see a Google Checkout link at the bottom of the screen. Buy $20 of calling credit — this will be plenty to buy a number and make calls. It may take a few minutes for your credit to evidence up.

At present we'll get an incoming phone number in your domicile state so people can call you without paying international rates.

(You can have as many DIDs as you desire, so if yous had customers in Guatemala and wanted to give them a local number, no problem!)

Click DID and Add a DID. Direct Inwards Dialing (for our purposes) is just a number continued to the regular phone networks. CallWithUs accesses third-party vendors' inventories to let yous to select a number.

Select a country, surface area code, charge per unit center (if this option is given) and phone number. Play around with the surface area codes and rate centers until you find a number you like that comes with gratuitous incoming minutes. You'll be surprised at how many good numbers are available!

Well-nigh DIDs cost $3-6 for setup and monthly fee. This is nil compared to what you lot'll save yourself and those calling you.

  1. To add your local jail cell number to your business relationship, click DID over again.
  2. Select the DID you only purchased.
  3. Select no for VOIP call.
  4. Enter your local phone number including the country code.
  5. Click the button to Add destination to DID.
  6. Click Edit next to the destination you lot just added.
  7. Modify Priority to 2 and confirm.

If your destination is a US number, make sure y'all included the 1 before the expanse code.

When someone calls your DID, CallWithUs volition check whether your phone is connected to the Internet, and if not information technology'll route calls to your local prison cell number.

Have a local landline too? No problem, simply add it as some other destination with priority 2 and your cell and landline will band simultaneously. Just pick upwardly whichever yous'd like to use (though landline is ofttimes cheaper).

Now let'southward fix your phone to receive Cyberspace calls.

4. Configuring your telephone for VOIP

SIP is the most pop protocol for Internet calls, and as I mentioned before, the Nokias I recommended come with clients built in to the telephone's firmware.

In your CallWithUs business relationship, click VOIP accounts. Use the username and password as listed on this page for the following settings.

Go to the carte du jour on your Nokia.

Tools » Settings » Connection » SIP settings
Options » Add together new » Employ default profile

Profile name: CallWithUs
Service contour: IETF
Default access betoken: Your WiFi access point
Public user proper name: (username)@callwithus.com
Utilise pinch: No
Registration: Always on
Utilise security: No

Don't go into Proxy server. Go for Registrar server.

Registrar server accost: sip:sip.callwithus.com
Realm: callwithus.com
Username: (username)
Password: (password)
Transport type: Auto
Port: 5060

Back » Back » Internet tel. settings » Options » New contour

Name: CallWithUs
SIP profiles: CallWithUs

Dorsum » Back » Call and change these settings:

Internet call waiting: Activated
Internet call alert: On
Default telephone call type: Cyberspace

At present when y'all're continued to your access point, your calls will be routed through the Internet by default. Obviously yous tin gear up the default to "cellular" if yous use the cellular network more frequently.

If you have WLAN scanning on, you'll notice that whenever you come within range of your WiFi, your phone will automatically connect to your CallWithUs business relationship!

At present getting your calls every bit economically as possible is TOTALLY AUTOMATIC.

If you're having trouble or you're using some other VOIP provider, try downloading Fring. It's a fantastic plan for Nokias that has a SIP client and a really simple configuration screen that always seems to work when others don't.

five. Voicemail

CallWithUs offers voicemail for $1 a month. They activate this manually, so click Contact Us to send them a asking. I haven't activated mine so I don't know whether messages are accessible online, emailed to yous, or any fun stuff like that.

Grandcentral also offers online voicemail free. It comes with some caveats and I don't recommend information technology, but information technology may be suitable for some so I'll mention information technology hither.

It's not bachelor outside the US and your calls will be going through their system also, so telephone call quality will be marginally lower. They too have a really annoying "feature" that requires you to press one afterwards picking upward to accept a telephone call.

Yous select a DID with them (free) and they direct all calls from this number to any U.s. numbers or Gizmo accounts yous annals with them. They all ring simultaneously and go to 1 central voicemail if no one picks up.

You tin block numbers and at one point could even play a number asunder message. Perfect for your ex!

Anyway, I say don't mess with information technology. CallWithUs is more configurable and we'd rather proceed our calls' routing as simple equally possible.

vi. Tips for using your nomad-enabled phone

  • To make a call over a network other than your default (for instance, calling your local voicemail when Internet calling is your default), punch the voicemail number then hit the selection push button (the middle of the telephone'due south directional navigation pad). Under Phone call you lot tin can select Vox call.
  • When you're entering contacts, enter a plus and the country code so you can call them from any network in the world.

    If yous want to yell at Bush, entering (202) 456-1414 won't get you lot to the White Firm switchboard unless you're in the United states. Instead use +12024561414. That way yous won't have to modify your numbers when yous're abroad.

    Don't forget the plus sign, as this is equivalent to 00 and indicates you're using the country code.

  • If you keep getting the wrong number, make sure you're dialing the country code. In the Us the 1 is required.
  • Call quality has always been slap-up for me, but if you're having problem you can dial *32 before the number to apply a premium route.

At present in that location'south i less matter keeping y'all from your travel dreams. Soon yous'll run out of excuses. 🙂

I'm sure you have some secrets of staying connected. Share them in the comments and let me know if you lot accept any questions!

Tynan also found a service called InternetCalls that offers free calling to many countries, U.s. included. In non-free countries, their rates are comparable to Gizmo and Skype.

There are a few limitations but nothing we'd ever hit. For well-nigh countries other than the US, calls to landlines are the merely complimentary ones. You also have to install a program on your computer to set up or modify your business relationship.

I adopt CallWithUs considering it's more configurable and whatever calls that were free with InternetCalls are dirt cheap anyway. You might save a couple bucks a calendar month if yous're only calling the United states of america.

Plus he tin can't get it working on his brick phone. Ha!