Can I use it when abroad?
Yes. The Sonetel iPhone app can be used to save substantial costs on calls when travelling, but it requires that you buy a local SIM-card in the country you are visiting.
If you want to make international calls at the cost of local calls when travelling, you need to do the following:
- Ensure that you bring a phone that is unlocked (allows SIM-cards from other phone companies to be used)
- Buy a local SIM card in the country you visit. It needs to have Internet access as well.
- Put in the new SIM card in your phone
- In the Sonetel iPhone app settings for your account, ensure that your „Mobile number“ is changed to the mobile number of the new SIM card.
Once this is done, you can make international calls at the cost of local calls. If you use the call mode „Call back“ in the app, this means that you pay Sonetel for both local calls, which means that your local SIM-card minutes never get consumed. This negates the need for you to refill the local SIM-card, which can be a hassle.
Please note that Sonetel sends a tiny bit of data across the Internet each time you make a call, so your SIM card must come with some form of Internet access. If your SIM card does not provide Internet access, you can instead connect your mobile phone to a WIFI hotspot. Calls will however never travel across the Internet connection – so data usage is minimal.
Some suggestions for a better experience
Here are some other tips for making the experience even better:
- Show your Sonetel number to the person you call.
In the iPhone app settings you can choose if you want to show your Sonetel phone number or your Mobile number to the person you are calling. If you have a Sonetel number and select that, it will appear as if you are calling from that number regardless what SIM you have in your phone from time to time. - Receive calls on your Sonetel number.
In the Sonetel web site, you can change your personal settings by adding the phone number of the local SIM card as one of your „Phones“ and activate it so that calls to any Sonetel numbers connected to you, get forwarded to your mobile phone – at the cost of a local phone call. Don’t forget to deactivate the other phones you may have added earlier for call forwarding.
Why can’t I use the app when roaming?
When you call with the Sonetel app, it always sets up a local mobile call between your mobile phone and Sonetel’s network as well as a local call in the country you are calling to. Both local calls are then bridged together automatically in Sonetel’s global network.
When your phone is in roaming mode in another country, there is usually no way for us to set up a local call to or from your mobile phone, without your phone company charging you a fortune. Besides that, our app needs Internet access, and if you activate that while in roaming, all your other apps will start sending data which will cost you more than a fortune.
So don’t ever use the app when in roaming. Buy a local SIM card instead.