The Flat Planet and a Phone !

Alec Saunders in his post How I spent just $4.16 on mobile calls at VON explains how he saved hundreds of dollars on phone calls while visiting Boston last week. I call it a secret, since while it is easy to do, most travelers continue to pay up to a few dollars a minute!

True it takes a little effort, and unfortunately most people are lazy. A manager at one international company told me that he has sales people coming back from trips with bills of $1000-2000! I suggested to him that we could give him access numbers in a number of countries and his calls would that would save him 80%, all he needed to do was to tell his people to program the access number in their mobile phones in the #9 key. Then all they need to do is press 9 and then the number they are dialing and they would save at least 80%! His answer was — my senior people are too lazy to do that!

Personally I have been doing this for a couple of years. When I go to a conference, if it outside of the USA, as soon as I land I buy a local SIM at any kiosk, and make all my calls thru a Flat Planet local access number in that country. I usually save about 90%. Not bad. If I take along with me one of my hybrid Wifi/GSM phones (such as the Nokia E61 with Fring or the Cubic Telecom mobile) I save more by using Wifi for many of my calls.

There are some easy to use consumer solutions, such as those Alec mentions (Mobivox and Truphone) and every week brings us a new competitor. These solutions enable you with minimum effort, once they are set up to really save money. I am also aware of other offerings that allow you to use your regular SIM and save money. These are good for the lazy people I mentioned above. True, you save less, but a 50% savings is still money…

If you have many travelers in your company and want to save money on roaming, contact me for some free advice, your boss will thank you!