If you have ever traveled with your cellphone, you’ll certainly have experienced being gouged by your mobile operator for all that international calling you did (or didn’t do). While you can roam other networks, many cellular companies seem to think it’s a license to charge an arm and a leg for even receiving SMSes.
The attractions therefore of owning an unlocked phone are huge. In one trip, I paid nearly $10,000 NTD in additional charges … an amount I could have avoided if I had used or taken an unlocked phone with me. I would have just use a local phone number, called on Skype to Taiwan, or got the wife to use my Skype To Go number. Even using Skype to call a mobile is cheaper than the gouging I had.
So, if you travel to another country, consider an unlocked phone or pay-as-you-go contract while you are there. Apart from anything else, getting a phone in your destination country means you don’t have to worry about HOW to charge the bloody thing!