Our latest mobile phones report suggests looking for a cheap phone at your destination if you’re travelling overseas. Here’s what I found when visiting Canada recently.

I kicked off with Telecom’s XT “put it to the test” challenge. You know: the one where a fashion designer goes to out-of-the-way places and calls the Hamster.

Test mark: FAIL. 

It seems Canada is off Telecom’s map - you can’t roam there on prepay. (You can roam elsewhere on XT prepay - like Romania and the Maldives, and just over the border in the USA.) I don’t have a phone on a Telecom post-paid plan, so on to the next option ...

We have a Vodafone mobile in the household and prepay roaming’s possible - at a price. Like $2.55 per outgoing local call (in Canada) and $1.00 for incoming calls. Texts cost 80c each way, and it’s $10 to set it up. Hmm, this could get expensive, especially when Mom starts calling her far flung sons.

So, an email heads off to Canada – how much for a cheap phone, and what are the prepay costs?  The deals at the time started at $49 Canadian for a phone, including $25 worth of calls or texts. Outgoing calls: 25c each, texts 15c each way.

Based on using the $25 for 20 outgoing calls, 20 incoming calls (they’re free on the Canadian plan we looked at), and 50 texts each way, we reckoned it’ll be around $90 cheaper buying the phone in Canada, even after adjusting for the exchange rate.

Vodafone’s total cost: NZ$161. The phone we bought in Canada, including local taxes, cost just NZ$74.

Another option would be taking the Vodafone mobile to Canada and buying a SIM card locally, as they have compatible GSM networks.  But we’d heard mother-in-law was looking at buying her first mobile phone, so we gave her a wee present as we left.

If you’ve had similar experiences with global roaming, let us know how it worked out for you.

  Hamish Wilson - Testing Manager

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