Cell Roaming
If you're reading this page you are probably looking for an inexpensive way to make and receive phone calls while traveling out of the country. You want this to be convenient and simple, both for you when making calls, and for the people telephoning you. You want good coverage so your phone (nearly) always works, and you want this to be affordable.
While all of the above sounds reasonable, cellular roaming is unfortunately somewhat complicated and VERY EXPENSIVE. Assuming your cellular service is even compatible with overseas networks and your phone works in other countries, as soon as you travel outside the coverage area of your local carrier, you will incur horrendous roaming fees. Local calls in the foreign country can cost up to $2 per minute and calls from Canada to your overseas location or back to Canada up to $5 per minute. Your cellular provider not only charges a roaming fee but also for the long distance forwarding from Canada to your overseas destination and 400 minutes roaming in the USA or overseas can cost 400-$800.
DCI can help you to avoid these charges by replacing your regular SIM card with a local USA or global roaming SIM card. In both cases the result is the same. You save 50-90% on local roaming and long distance for calls to and from Canada as well as local calls in the foreign country and since the SIM card is good indefinitely if recharged, you won't have to buy another one again.
DCI also offers call forwarding to your roaming SIM so you don't have to advise your friends and business associates that your phone number has changed. Before leaving the country you simply call forward all incoming calls from your cell to DCI's system and your local cell phone will redirect all incoming calls to DCI where in turn the calls will be forwarded to your roaming SIM at 90% discount over your regular roaming fees.
You will need a carrier unlocked GSM tri-band world phone to use this service. Unfortunately most cellular phones, especially those provided as a part of a monthly plan are SIM-LOCKED and are programmed to accept only SIM cards from your current cellular provider. To verify you can try inserting a SIM card from another provider (borrow one from a friend). Make sure the phone operates on the 900/1800/1900 frequencies before purchasing a phone if you plan to use it overseas. While not exclusively true, in general you will need the 1800Mhz frequency in Europe, 900Mhz in Asia and 1900Mhz in North America.