Using phone in USA

[#1]

Hi. Sorry if this question seems naive but I'd appreciate some help.

I will be travelling to the USA shortly and plan to spend several weeks there.

In the past, I have simply used the phone in airplane mode, taking advantage of wifi which is widely available.

I can turn off answerphone to avoid charges. I can use wifi to surf the web and avoid data charges.

However, the banks/cards are now using 2FA regularly and that requires receiving text messages.

Here's the crunch... if I turn airplane mode off to receive a text message, does my phone use any data... or do I simply get a 40p charge to receive the text message?

Sorry if I'm asking a daft question. TIA

Brent

[#2 · Accepted solution]

I would say it will depend on the model of phone you are using. I've only used an iPhone for the last few years and that uses iMessage which uses data for messaging which is the kind of thing you need.

I assume all modern phones these days use some kind of data service for messaging?

That's what I would do is just try to use data for voice and messages, ideally in free WiFi places. I assume data roaming in the USA (if possible) costs an arm and three legs so I would steer clear of that.

Though years since I went there and it was so long ago that was back in the day (showing my age now) before we used mobile data!

[#3]

The text messages that are sent for 2FA are SMS  messages and are sent over the normal GSM network.

The good news is that they are free to receive, the 40p is the cost to send from the USA.

So now for the problem of ensuring the phone doesn't use mobile data. In principle, turning off data roaming should be sufficient but to be sure, I'd disable mobile data completely! You may find that some phones still use small amounts of data especially on boot up. I'd suggest checkng the mobile data settings before going to the USA

[#4]

Having experienced roaming charges over the last year, I'd advise 2 things:

1. disable mobile data before you get on the plane (my wife didn't and her phone used 933MB of data when she switched it back on in the USA catching up on social media messages - at £6/MB it soon adds up - which is where the smart cap comes in)
2. change your smart cap to £0 before you leave (even with mobile data disabled some phones - e.g. mine - will use data if they are rebooted before they realise data is disabled) 

As MisterW mentioned, receiving texts is free.

If you want to make calls, I'd either get a local PAYG SIM (there are tourist SIMS with a reasonable allowance available), or use Skype (I've found it works well over WiFi).

[#5]

Hi and thanks. Just to clarify, can I still receive text messages then in airplane mode with data roaming switched off? I assumed that data needed to be switched on to receive them.

Brent

[#6]

I don't think SMS will work with airplane mode on, but they don't need or use data to be enabled in order to send or receive SMS. Just disable mobile data before you leave the UK.

[#7]

Fantastic. Thanks for your help.