Using VoIP on Holiday Saves Hassle and Money

Summer is upon us again, and naturally many are choosing to spend the warmest season of the year exploring different countries and cultures. Thanks to low-cost airlines and the ease of using the internet for booking, even the most fiscally-impaired are able to organise holidays that won’t break the bank.

But what about staying in touch while travelling? There’s obviously the possibility of using the phones at your accommodation, or taking your mobile phone with you. However, the phones available at your accommodation generally may not be the cheapest to use, and depending on the landline infrastructure in your visiting country, might not provide you with the best connection either.

Bringing your mobile phone abroad to stay in touch with friends can seem more convenient, as the phone can be with you at all times, making calls easy. Mobile phones have become prevalent in most countries since the turn of the millennium – indeed, some countries that have poor landline infrastructure, such as China, have a vastly superior mobile phone network, with a rapidly improving quality of service and competitive prices. However, due to confusing roaming charges, travellers could find that bringing their phones with them on holidays abroad can leave them with call charges that cost almost as much as the holiday itself.

A recent survey by the European Union found that the standard price for roaming calls home costs around 4 — 6 Euros for just four minutes, and could cost significantly more. For example, an Austrian holidaymaker in Malta could pay 9.51 Euros for a call home of this length, while a Cypriot travelling through Belgium could end up shelling out 12 Euros. It is no surprise then, that the same survey showed that 63% of Europeans would rather leave their phones at home than worry about the intricacies of mobile phone roaming charges.

An increasing number of holidaymakers are therefore opting to simply leave their phones at home and forego the local landlines in favour of voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) services to stay in touch with friends and family. VoIP providers allow users to make calls and other services, such as video calls, over the internet for free, meaning it costs holidaymakers no more than the cost of going online. Nowadays, internet connections are available at hotels, motels and guesthouses all around the world and several internet caf?s use the availability of VoIP services as a selling point.

So if you’re going a holiday abroad this summer, leave your phone at home and you’ll find that using the web can provide a better and cheaper way of staying in touch with friends and family.

Disclaimer: Andrew Regan writes on behalf of a digital marketing agency. He hopes you enjoyed his article, but urges you to seek further understanding of its topics before making any decisions based on its content.