Using mobiles abroadCheck your mobile will work

• Contact your service provider well in advance to make sure you can use your phone in the country you’re travelling to. Not all networks allow you to roam everywhere.
• Check whether your service provider has to activate your phone for use abroad.
• Orange, O2 and T-Mobile customers may need to pay a deposit, depending on their credit history. Virgin has a standard £100 credit limit for roaming, and T-Mobile and Vodafone will sometimes put one in place.
• Check whether your handset will work at your destination. Networks in the US and Canada use different radio frequencies from the rest of the world. The dual-band phones commonly used in the UK won't work in these countries – you'll need a tri-band phone instead. You can also experience compatibility issues when travelling to Japan and some Caribbean islands
• If there's a compatibility problem with your handset, you can hire a suitable handset from your provider or via third-parties before you go. You can also hire them once you're overseas.
• Check network coverage in the country you're visiting. Rural areas of many foreign countries can be patchy.
• If you need to access messages while overseas, check whether you need to set up a new access code to do so.
• Don’t forget to take a travel adaptor so that you can plug in your charger.

Sorting these issues out before you leave will save you both hassle and money. Once abroad calls to customer services are expensive, costing as much as £2 per minute.