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TMCNet: San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Action Line column

[April 13, 2012]

San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Action Line column

Apr 13, 2012 (San Jose Mercury News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Here are some reader tips for cellphone use while traveling: Q Regarding using U.S. cellphones overseas, my daughter and I found it much cheaper and easier to purchase disposable telephones with a half-hour usage in the United Kingdom and then reload the minutes as necessary.

There are places on almost every corner in London where the reloading can be done. This was after a most frustrating attempt to have our SIM cards changed to U.K. cards, a move that had been suggested to us.

Look on Rick Steves' travel site (www.ricksteves.com) and check the category of "telephones in Europe" (or, wherever you are going) for comments on current best-buy locations.

We just turned off our U.S. phones until we were coming home. It cost us less to make this purchase than it would have to pay for minutes from our domestic carrier, less than $30 for the telephone and the first half-hour of calls with rates to the U.S. of 5 cents per minute.

Terry Goss Walnut Creek A And ...

Q Dennis, When we travel to Europe, which we have done once a year for the past eight years since I retired, we use the Verizon Rent-A-Phone program.

It uses my domestic Verizon cell number and you can choose whether or not to have calls forwarded to the rental phone.

It costs $20 to cover shipping to mail the phone to you and to mail it back.

You choose when to activate and deactivate the rental.

We use the phone to text at 5 cents each text, to stay in contact with our family and to be contacted should an emergency occur.

I do not have, or want to have, a smartphone. I can't see spending $30 per month, per phone, for a data plan. I can better spend the $720 per year it would cost for phones for my wife and me.

A phone is a phone is a phone.

Del Locke Benicia A And, the last word.

Q Hi Dennis, our Asian blog on the WoWasis travel website has published several posts on how to buy inexpensive mobile phones in Asia, using SIM and top-off cards. I just updated a post that might prove beneficial to your readers. It's at www.wowasis.com/travelblog/?p=4346.

Geoff San Jose Contact Action Line at actionline@mercurynews.com, 408-920-5796, Facebook.com/bayareanewsgroup.actionline or Twitter.com/action_line.

___ (c)2012 the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) Visit the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) at www.mercurynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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