NYT interviews overseas business travellers and reveals that even those with tri-band phones don’t use them in Europe, due to the exorbitant roaming fees (unless they’re spending someone else’s money). Most of them do what I do: buy a cheap GSM phone in Europe and get prepaid minutes and a local phone number in every country they visit.
But the drawback of traveling abroad with the same number you use at home is that roaming charges can add up fast, up to several dollars a minute depending on your service plan and where you are.
“Let’s say you’re tooling around Paris and you get a phone call from your cousin Larry who wants to borrow your lawn mower — that call cost you $5,” Mr. Kerton said. “And if Larry’s a real talker and you can’t get him off the phone, it could be $10 or $15.”
For that reason — or because they do not have a G.S.M. phone — some travelers purchase a second phone just for international travel. That was what Julie Pfeffer, an analyst with DuPont Capital Management in Wilmington, Del., decided to do after realizing it was getting too difficult to do business on trips abroad without a phone.