What is roaming and how can you use it? It may be tricky at first if you have never used it, or never went abroad, but nowadays you should know how it works so you can use it freely. Today we will deal with this topic in our post.
What is roaming
In the simplest terms, and to dispel all doubts – we are dealing with roaming when we connect to cellular services through an operator other than our home provider, whose services we use on a daily basis.
Roaming – types
There are two types of roaming:
- international roaming – used if the subscriber is in a country other than the country in which the operator’s network is in force and wants to use telecommunications services,
- national or regional roaming – this type of roaming is used between networks of operators located in the same country. As a rule, such actions are not allowed. They are allowed if a new operator would like to enter the market, but this would be difficult due to the dominant position of existing operators.
International roaming
Here again we have to consider two cases. One resulting from the FUP and the EU regulation that allows operators to introduce roaming subsidies in the EU. These payments are fixed in advance and the same for each operator.
The second case results from the consents for EU roaming subsidies issued to all operators by UKE, on different terms and with different amounts. Here, operators monitor customer behavior over a period of only 30 days and if the customer uses roaming in the EU more than domestic calls during this period, they charge their surcharges. In this case, the husband going to Germany for work will certainly “get” additional payments. They will be avoided only by tourists who go to any of the EU countries for holidays, and these usually last from a week to two.
How to turn roaming on
To properly enable mobile data roaming in the Data usage tab, select the Additional options menu and select Data roaming. In the Mobile network settings tab, simply select the Data roaming option.
Background data limitation
To properly turn off mobile data transfer in the background in the Data usage tab, select the Additional options menu and select the Restrict background data option and deselect the Auto data synchronization option (if available). After enabling background data limit, the Android status bar will show the notification “Background data is limited”. Note, clicking this message will re-enable background data transfer.
Roaming agreements
For a roaming mechanism to be used between two operators, a roaming agreement must be signed. It includes technical and financial aspects. Usually, many separate contracts are concluded for different technologies. E.g:
- Roaming agreement related to the provision of GSM services
- Roaming agreement related to the provision of GPRS services
- Roaming agreement related to CAMEL technology (thanks to it, roaming users can use pre-paid sales).
