30.06.2018

Roaming abroad – Megafon, MTS, Tele2, Beeline. Comparison of current tariffs, which one to choose?

Most Russians today have a personal cellular telephone. Many people register several numbers at once, dividing them into “personal” (for family and friends) and “work” (for business contacts), or dividing their numbers by operator.

Thanks to this division very convenient to call back, for example, to different clients with different numbers, and thus spend less on telephone conversations. This is due to the fact that cellular works thanks to a huge number of receiving and transmitting stations.

As soon as a person presses the “call” button on his phone, the radio signal from the phone is sent to the station closest to him, from which it is relayed through dozens of others towards the final recipient.

Every major telephone company has its own stations, often called "towers" (although today they are more like a large system unit from a computer and does not necessarily require long antennas that are visible from afar for its operation).

However, if each cellular company transmitted radio calls only within its network, communication between subscribers different companies would be impossible. In order to prevent this, there is an agreement between the owners of cellular companies to share their telephone equipment.

Simply put, as soon as you call a client of another company from your phone, the signal from your phone is sent first to “your” and from there to the “other’s” substation, which operate at the same frequency, providing any subscriber opportunity to talk with the owner of any telephone number.

However, everything changes dramatically as soon as you travel abroad. Most countries in the world have cellular communications, which operate on the same principles, and even on the same frequencies, as in Russia.

However, the problem is that distance between subscribers international communications can be tens of thousands of kilometers. In such conditions, transmitting a telephone signal requires much more cost and effort.

In this regard, the companies agreed on the international level that every phone owner while abroad will be able to receive and make calls, but in exchange for this, his SIM card operator will have to pay part of the costs to those companies through whose equipment this person and will get in touch. This type of communication is called “Roaming”.

During roaming, a person who is abroad remains a client (subscriber) of his own company (for example, Megafon). However, since MegaFon does not have its own towers, for example, in Greece, this person’s phone can connect to workstation another, local company (for example, Vodafone).

Thus, while a person is abroad, he will make and receive calls through "towers" of a local company, but in the future they will be sent via satellite or wire lines to their homeland, where they will be processed by his “native” company. Due to this, the cost of calls in Roaming can be an order of magnitude higher than within the country.

On most phones, roaming mode starts working V automatic mode, immediately upon arrival/arrival, switching to new “towers”. For this reason, it is important to choose in advance correct tariff from your mobile operator, so as not to lose all the money in your account after the first call received.

Everyone has it major operator (MegaFon, MTS, Tele2, Beeline) yes special rates for those traveling abroad, in which certain discounts are provided for roaming services.

For example, the MTS company has packages “Zero Without Borders” (free incoming calls in roaming for 95 rubles per day), “Zabugorische” (cheap tariffs for all calls), or “Bit Abroad” (inexpensive unlimited Internet while roaming).

MegaFon offers to purchase in advance packages of minutes for incoming and outgoing calls in roaming, and the connected “Most Profitable Roaming” service from Beeline allows you to make 20 minutes of outgoing calls daily for 200 rubles, or use 40 MB of mobile Internet for the same cost.

Thus, a favorable tariff plan for roaming can be found with any operator. The most important thing here is to try to determine exactly how and how intensively you plan to use the phone. If you just need to be able to call your loved ones once a day, it’s better to choose inexpensive and small(by length of calls) tariff plan.

If you understand that you have long negotiations ahead with business partners, or you need to use mobile internet for receiving and sending files, it is better activate that tariff in advance, which gives a big discount on this service– a large package with prepaid minutes, or a tariff plan with daily payment and a significant discount on the cost of each call.

When going on a trip abroad, most people think about the issue of roaming communications. To save money, tourists have several options.

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When going on a trip abroad, most people think about the issue of roaming communications:

• What is the best way to use the Internet abroad?
• How much will calls cost on my tariff?
• What options can you connect to save money and not get a big telecom bill when you return home?

To save money, those traveling abroad have several options:

• Connect roaming to your Russian operator
• Buy a local SIM card
• Buy a special tourist SIM card

Today we will look at last option For example touristSIM-GoodLine cards.

TouristSIM-GoodLine card - international roaming is up to 10 times more profitable!

Over 14 years on the market, among Russian tourists, GoodLine SIM cards have become one of the most popular additional services when traveling abroad!

Main advantagesSIM-GoodLine cards:

• 4G/LTE Internet abroad - from 30 kopecks/MB
• Free calls in Russia on Viber without internet
• Free incoming calls in 144 countries
• No monthly fee and hidden fees
• Opportunity save your Russian number

Attention! Promotion! Only now you can get a GoodLine tourist SIM card completely free of charge and start enjoying profitable roaming!

How to call Russia for free?

A unique service is available to all GoodLine subscribers “Free calls to Russia on Viber without internet.”

To use the service, just dial the number in the required format. All! Now you can call your family and friends in Russia for free.

Only a connection fee is charged, equal to 1 minute of an outgoing call within the host country.

Internet abroad from 30 kopecks/MB!

Each GoodLine subscriber can choose an Internet package that will satisfy exactly his needs.

The most profitable internet packages:

• Internet package “SmartData” - 1000 MB for $19 (from 1 ruble/MB)
• Internet package “Sea of ​​Internet” - 5000 MB for $29 (from 30 kopecks/MB)

The most profitable internet options:

By connecting one of the Internet options, the subscriber will be able to enjoy profitable benefits for a whole year per megabyte payment for the Internet - from 60 kopecks per megabyte! No traffic restrictions!

• Internet option “Always online” - Cost of 1 MB - $0.019 (from 1 ruble/MB)
• Internet option " Profitable Internet» - Cost of 1 MB - $0.01 (from 60 kopecks/MB)

And that is not all!

The GoodLine tourist SIM card works in more than 200 countries around the world. By inserting a SIM card into your smartphone once, you can safely go on a trip around the world.

And in order not to worry about the balance on your SIM card running out, activate the service "Auto balance replenishment" which will automatically top up your balance with bank card when it approaches $0.

Bottom line

With travel SIM card "GoodLine" you can go to Europe, America, Asia or any other continent. And you will be sure that:

• You will not be left without communication! In each country, GoodLine has 3-5 roaming partners;
• You can always share in social networks fresh photos and videos;
• You will be able to maintain your home habits! Feel free to read the news, scroll through your feed on social networks, watch videos on YouTube, use navigation and don’t worry about not having enough traffic.
• And most importantly - calls and internet will be at the best prices!

Can you imagine your life today without mobile phone? These gadgets have literally become necessary attributes of our existence. Therefore, mobile communications abroad are as necessary as at home.

In addition to the fact that phones give us the opportunity to communicate with friends via the Internet, we do not refuse the opportunity to call them from other countries. How can this be done most profitably and economically?

Currently, and as it has been since the advent of mobile communications, if you cross the border, your operator automatically transfers you to roaming. In fact, this is one of the most convenient ways to stay abroad for a short period of time.

• Do not miss:

The advantages are obvious:

• no need to buy a new SIM card;
• no need to download additional programs.

It is especially important to note that roaming rates are quite reasonable, given short conversations without unnecessary chatter. The main advantage of this choice of mobile communications abroad is eliminating the problem of finding a profitable option for calls. You simply don’t waste time on this, enjoy a good rest and occasionally call home to say that everything is fine with you.

Additional operator services

In addition to the fact that you find yourself in roaming, you often receive a message from the operator listing additional features. They allow you to save a sufficient amount of money while roaming. For example, these could be proposals like this:

• free incoming calls;
• discounts for a tariff plan in a specific country;
• special offer for frequent Internet users;
• packages of sms or mms messages.

Each operator has a different list of services provided in roaming, but still, it must be said that this type of mobile communication abroad is always the most expensive. Therefore, if you want to communicate within a new country, you will have to look for another option.

Local SIM cards

If you get a SIM card for the country you are in, this will give you a number of advantages:

• use of favorable tariffs within the country;
• often unlimited Internet;
• ease of use during long journeys.

However, there are also a number of disadvantages:

• you can't save yours old number telephone;
• a sufficient amount of time will be spent searching for a new operator;
• if you don't own foreign language, using the tariff plan will be problematic.

If all the above circumstances are not a problem for you, feel free to buy a local SIM card. The only thing, remember that you will have to look for another way to call home.

Travel SIMs

Perhaps one of the most popular methods of communication among avid travelers is calls using travel SIM cards. They give you the following benefits:

1. Possibility to save the number.
2. Most cheap calls from all of the above options.
3. Various operators provide different opportunities, which gives you the right to choose the best option specifically for you.

It is important to note that not all operators provide tourist SIM cards. For some, they even work only at strict certain rates. Therefore, be careful when applying for such a card and carefully study all the terms of the tariff plan.

SIM cards are the most popular among tourists. They are designed specifically for travelers and offer the most favorable rates to connect with friends and family.

In general, today SIP telephony is considered the most progressive and economical method of mobile communication abroad. It works using voice signals over the Internet. And in order to use it, just download special application and register in the provider’s network.

Skype, Viber and other applications

Today, you will hardly surprise anyone with the presence of these applications on your phone. But for some reason, when a person goes abroad, he instantly forgets about them and begins to panic. Stop worrying! Getting internet abroad is as easy as shelling pears. For this there are at least two simple ways:

1. Wi-Fi network any establishments, taxis and sites.
2. Local provider for home use.

The first method will be the most profitable, convenient, and most importantly – free for you. For the second one you will have to pay, but, nevertheless, the amount is not very different from the standard prices, and depending on the required number of megabytes per day, you can choose the tariff that suits you.

Skype applications and Viber allow you to call family and friends simply via the Internet. Therefore, if they also have these programs installed, calls from abroad will not become a problem. The connection quality is excellent, and a nice bonus is added to everything. You probably already guessed that this is a video call from Skype.

Take advantage of all the achievements of the 21st century; when choosing mobile communications abroad, give preference to modern technologies and you will always have profitable communications between countries. Then your vacation will go without any hassle, and you will enjoy it 100%!

If you travel a lot, communication costs can be quite hefty. Today I want to tell you how we save on calls while always staying in touch.

Of course, instead of SMS you can use WhatsApp, and talk on Skype, but this is not always convenient or even possible. Needed for Skype good internet, and you also need to somehow call people on Skype (suddenly they are not online), also, if there is no Internet, you cannot call a bank, insurance or other offices via Skype. In my opinion, using roaming is also not an option, well, except in extreme cases - the amounts there can be fabulous. Especially if you accidentally forget to turn off data transfer on your smartphone, updates will start downloading - you won’t even notice how your balance will go into minus, and you won’t be able to call anywhere.

2. What you need to use

Firstly, you will need a smartphone or iOS to install the application itself. The app is free, you only charge for calls.

Secondly, check and, if necessary, top up the balance (we, for example, immediately had 5 € in our account). This is easy to do directly through the application. We paid by credit card.

Third, it is advisable that the local SIM card (which you buy while traveling) has an Internet connection. Preferably, because V new version applications, calls can be made without the Internet, through regular mobile communications(although this is not yet available for all countries), as well as simply via Wi-Fi, i.e. no SIM card at all.

That's all, as you can see, nothing special is required, you can install it right away and start using it.

3. How Roamer works

You can make calls either through a roamer or through a regular calling application. If you call via regular standard application, then the cost of the call is calculated according to the tariff connected to the installed SIM card. The most profitable way is to call local numbers. For example, when we, we often had to call local Thai numbers. With a Thai SIM card, it cost pennies.

And if you need to call another country, then this is where you need to use a roamer. Just launch the application, dial the number (or select a contact - all contacts from the address book are available there), and the call goes through the roamer.

The main application window looks like this:

A panel with tools slides out on the left, you can view your balance, top it up, and activate your local SIM number:

For example, tariffs for calls from to Russia:

The roamer has several schemes for calls:

1) Via the Internet. In this case, after dialing the number, the roamer sends the subscriber’s number via the Internet to its server, after which the server first dials you, and then the call from the server goes to the subscriber.

And here there is 2 options:

• you have a local SIM card with an Internet connection installed - the Internet is used only to initiate a call, the conversation is already going on over regular mobile networks,
• You don't have a SIM card, but you have Wi-Fi. Here the connection may be worse, depending on the quality of the Internet. The entire call is made only via the Internet. The cost of calls in this case is lower. By the way, even if you have a SIM card, you can choose to have the call go through Wi-Fi.

2) Via mobile network. In this case, after dialing the number, the roamer offers to call through the local roamer number. Therefore, this method is not available in all countries - local roamer numbers are not available everywhere yet (but already in many countries, a list of countries with full support is available on the official website here). The standard calling application is automatically launched, the roamer's number is dialed, and the subscriber's number is transmitted. After this, the roamer makes a call to you and the called party in the same way (as in the case of calls via the Internet).

In practice, you need to get used to the fact that after dialing a number you need to wait for an incoming call, answer it, and then wait for the subscriber to answer. By the way, after you answered incoming call from the roamer, the waiting time for the subscriber to pick up the phone is counted as conversation time, and the money is already debited. And for the subscriber, the incoming call looks like a normal one, the number is determined to be the one you have indicated as home, as if you were calling not from the other side of the world, but from home.

4. Our experience of use

We found out about Roamer shortly before leaving and decided to immediately try how it works. It was still available then old version application, when installing, there was already about 5 € in the account, so it was possible to test it for free. Before leaving, you had to “park” your phone number. This is done right before departure, because... after that, all calls to our number were forwarded to the roamer. That is, the old SIM card could only receive SMS. And the roamer only worked when a local SIM card was connected and the Internet was working. Now they have made it much more convenient, you don’t have to buy a local SIM card, you can make calls via Wi-Fi.

But then, after arriving in Thailand, I received a free SIM card in , threw some money on it, and connected the Internet. Then I registered the Thai SIM card number in the roamer and that’s it - incoming calls to the Moscow number began to be forwarded to the Thai SIM card. If I needed to call Russia, I called through a roamer - the cost of a minute of conversation is only 4 eurocents. If you had to do it local call, then I just called using a local SIM card. At the same time, I have a Moscow SIM card in a separate phone, and SMS messages come there. When moving to a new country, if we come for more than a week, then we buy a local SIM card, again register the local phone number in the roamer and use cheap call rates. Everything works fine, the connection is good (depending on the location, of course).

A mega convenient thing when you need to resolve some issues with Russia if you are in another country. When Vova, we had to talk a lot, a lot with the insurance company, just then, in a few days of active communication (we were literally hanging on the phone), we spent 5 €, which were in the account, that is, in general it turned out that we communicated for free. Then they added $13 to the account (the minimum amount that can be used to top up the account), in 6 months only $10 was spent, in my opinion, this is just an amazing saving! Of course, you still need to add the cost of local SIM cards with minimal Internet. But in the new roamer, for example, you can make calls without a SIM card at all, via Wi-Fi, so it’s even cheaper.

Initially, I installed a roamer so that I would have my Moscow number, so that I wouldn’t have to send out new numbers to anyone (they still change periodically due to moving), I didn’t even expect that the cost of calls would be almost the same as in Russia, no huge roaming prices. Overall we are happy with the application, I don’t even know how else you can use roaming if there is such a great alternative.

Mobile communications when traveling is always a bit of a “pig in a poke.” IN tariff plans mobile operators It’s difficult to figure out, and counting expenses takes a long time. Therefore, the debt for communication services often comes as a surprise to the traveler.

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If calls are important

We have selected the most advantageous offers from the Big Four operators and written explanations for each item.

Megaphone

Megafon offers several profitable options. If you are traveling to the USA, Canada, Cuba, Tunisia or Mexico, select the “Whole World” option. Subscription fee 59 rubles for 40 incoming minutes per day. This means that the price of an incoming minute is approximately 1.5 rubles - cheap. If you exceed the tariff, the price of an incoming minute will be 89 rubles.

In European countries, the CIS and Turkey, it is profitable to take the “Around the World” option - all incoming and outgoing calls will cost 13 rubles. per minute and 11 rubles per SMS. If you are traveling to Thailand, UAE, Israel, Vietnam, Australia, Japan or Indonesia, fares will be more expensive.

How to save on outgoing? Call subscriber service 0500 and dial the desired number - it's free. The system will drop the call, contact the interlocutor and call you back.

If you often travel for work, it is convenient to connect the “Around the World” tariff to your second SIM card.

Check everything again and select economical option roaming can be done on the Megafon website, indicating the country of residence.

The “Zero without Borders” option is for those who travel for a short time and talk little.

Incoming calls are free, but the call must be no longer than 10 minutes. You can receive no more than 200 minutes of calls per month. If both conditions are violated, you will need to pay 25 rubles per minute. For the first minute of outgoing calls you will pay 85 rubles, but from the second to the sixth - 25 rubles. in a minute. Next - again 85 rubles.

The “Free Travel” option is suitable for those who plan to call home often. For 190 rub. 60 minutes per day for incoming and outgoing calls. If you exceed, pay 10 rubles. in a minute.

Both options will not work if roaming is not enabled. Before traveling, call 0890 and ask the operator to check.

If you want to send SMS cheaper, you can activate the “50 SMS in Europe” service for 250 rubles. or “50 SMS while traveling around the world” for 500 rubles.

Tele2, “Conversations without borders”

For those who answer only the most important calls while on vacation, this is the best option. The subscription fee is 5 rubles per day, and 5 rubles per minute for an incoming call.

To activate the service, dial *143*1# on your phone. Disable - *143*0#.

Beeline, “The most profitable roaming”

Beeline automatically debits you 200 rubles as soon as you receive an incoming call while roaming and provides a package of 20 minutes. The “trick” is that these are both incoming and outgoing minutes. An SMS to Russia costs 10 rubles. If you go online, a 40 MB package is automatically connected. for 200 rub.

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If the Internet is important

A win-win option is Wi-Fi in a hotel or cafe. But if you constantly move around the city, it is inconvenient to use. It is better to buy a tourist or local SIM card.

The reception of the hotel or hostel where you are staying will tell you about good local rates. Don’t ignore communication shops: go to several, ask for prices and choose the appropriate tariff.

An interesting life hack for traveling to Europe - Prepaid Sim Card. Many operators have such SIM cards, and they are often sold directly at the airport or large stores. They may ask for a passport for registration.

Internet tariffs for Prepaid Sim Card are fabulous: from 5 euros per gigabyte. For example, mobile operator Cosmote in Greece sells 5 gigabytes for 30 euros. The SIM card is valid for 30 days.

The most profitable tourist SIM card on this moment- “Dreamsim.” Everything is simple here: you buy it in Russia before leaving, put it in your smartphone and go on a trip.

Funds are debited for the traffic you use. Prices are calculated per megabyte, but differ from country to country. For example, in England or Thailand a gigabyte costs 10 euros, and in Germany and France - 25.

Cheap calls via the Internet

If you have constant inexpensive Internet and a smartphone, you can call Russia almost at home rates. How?

We install a SIM card with low-cost Internet and install a suitable application. MegaFon has eMotion: with it, incoming calls to a Russian number are free, and outgoing calls cost a maximum of 1.5 rubles per minute.

It is beneficial for MTS subscribers to install MTS Connect. For outgoing calls, the minutes from your package are debited, and for incoming ones - free of charge. You must have an MTS SIM card in your phone, otherwise the application will not work.

Tele2 offers the Wi-Fi calling service. You also install the application and talk if you have Internet access according to your tariff plan.

There is no application for Beeline subscribers yet. But you can install, for example, AvoApp - it is available for both Android and iOS. In the application, save your Russian number using forwarding and you will be able to receive calls in roaming at the price of local ones. For outgoing calls - about 5 cents per minute.

If you don't want to buy a SIM card for the Internet, just connect to any free Wi-Fi- everything will work the same.

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Have a good travel!