Data Roaming Charges

By David

If you are an avid cell phone user, you have likely heard the term “roaming” before. You might have even experienced the charges associated with it. While most people are familiar with typical roaming charges from making phone calls, there are also data roaming charges for using your data plan outside of your native coverage area which most are not that familiar with. Below, we will take a look at what exactly data roaming is, why it costs extra, and how to avoid it.

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What is Data Roaming?

Data roaming charges come about as a result of using data outside your coverage areas, which is similar to typical roaming in most respects. If you are unfamiliar with what roaming is, it is essentially a state your phone enters anytime you use its services outside of your network’s native coverage area or the area that the company provides service for using its own towers. To extend their coverage or cover gaps, many companies will rent towers from other companies. When you are using these rented towers, you are roaming regardless of whether you are making phone calls or using data.

Why does Roaming Cost Extra?

The reason you end up being charged additional data roaming charges when using data from one of these rented towers is because the company is attempting to minimize the costs of renting the use of that tower. If a company was to add a new tower of its own, that would extend the native coverage area, benefiting all its customers, thus the maintenance costs for the new tower would be split evenly amongst the entire customer base resulting in a negligible price increase. With a rented tower however, only those making use of the tower are deriving any benefit from it and so the costs are applied only to those who use it and to be as fair as possible are based upon usage.

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How to Avoid Roaming Charges

Whether you are talking about regular roaming or data roaming charges, we would all like to learn how we can avoid them. The first and simplest method is to be sure your carrier covers the areas where you live, work, and have fun with their native coverage network. If they do not, you may wish to consider switching to a company that does. For some however, switching carriers may not be an option — and thankfully — there are other ways to avoid roaming. While just not making or accepting calls works for regular roaming, your phone may still use data automatically. Airplane mode or a tweak to your phone’s settings can easily fix this. Additionally, using free Wi-Fi hot spots for your data use and phone calls is a great way to avoid roaming charges as these areas are considered “in network” so long as you have your phone set up to use the Wi-Fi signal instead of the carrier’s network.

Now you are more familiar with data roaming charges and why they are necessary, but more importantly, a few different ways you can go about avoiding them to reduce you monthly cell phone bill.

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