Leaving the country for 10 days, need to know my options

[Jim 777]

We're heading down to Belize for some diving. There's going to be wifi at the hotel but supposedly everything down there is roaming and at $3/min, that's not going to happen.

Can I set the phone to not roam (even if there's no way to get calls) and use Skype to call my boys over the wifi? I'm not verse in Skype but I thought I'd ask about whether I can use my phone.

Thanks.

 

[Jim 777]

As a little added side note to this over-active thread, I went to the local Verizon store today. I asked about how to NOT incur roaming charges. He was telling me about where to uncheck an option so that the phone won't connect to the internet (don't know if that includes using wifi).

He was looking over my shoulder as I was looking for where to turn off the connection to mobile network. He looks at the options and says, "Eh, your phone looks different."

[eyes looking away] "I don't know what you're talking about."

"that looks totally different from a normal phone. Did you get an update recently?"

"Um, no"

"That's weird."

"Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm definitely NOT running 2.2"

He pauses, looks at me, "Ah, you're rooted?"

And that totally broke the ice there. He was totally hitting me up with questions about advantages with rooting. Of coarse, like usual, I forgot most. I mentioned the talk here about not mentioning or letting any one from Verizon know you're rooted or they'll take note and not provide any support.

He said that's with the corporate stores. "Don't go there"

I realized after talking about it that rooting really is for those of a certain personality. I love and thrive for uniqueness. I always have with my cars and bikes. That's why I OCD on customizing and changing things up. He just wants a certain app or two and he's good. I think that says a lot for people here too.

JMHO

 

[christim]

If you check off airplane mode then turn wireless back on I'm pretty sure you've blocked the cell towers while leaving gps, wifi, etc open to you.

Totally different phone, ha.

 

[Bear in NM]

Jim,

Sounds like you live in a small community like mine. No coporate store here, and I had a similar experience last Christmas. I was showing a friend (who happened to be buying a Droid for her son) my boot animation at the time, and the phone folks took a peek and laughed. So I fumbled a few words and then decided what the heck, "yes I am rooted, overclocked, illegal you name it. Where are the handcuffs?". I told them I know I have voided my phone warranty. They just laughed, and said that was for corporate stores. As I buy my computers there (have them built), purchase most AV things and most electronics, they love it when I come in. They would back me 100% with any phone issues, rooted or not.

The downside is I paid a bit over 300 bucks when the rest of the folks here were getting the phone for 188, but I like to think of it as an additional insurance plan. They would go to bat for me.

Craig

 

[Jim 777]

Cool. Yeah I said at one point that if I had to turn it in, it would not look anything like it does now.


Now.... any thoughts on the Belize trip?

 

[omegajb]

This is my one big problem with Verizon the lack of choice when going international. I tried using Skype on WiFI on the droid and it said its not supported in WiFI mode so I would guess no.
Maybe you can get a cheap unlocked gsm phonw with a prepaid sim for short calls.

 

[MtnMarty]

I was just back from Canada where data roaming is expensive. I just clicked airplane mode, then activated wifi and I was good to go in the hotel, etc. No added data charges at all from VZ. I used to use Fring to Skype via wifi, but that's not available any more.

 

[dakster]

When I was in Japan I had good luck using Sipdroid with a sipgate one account to make calls back to the US over wifi. Kept 3g data disabled the whole time, although I kept the CDMA radio enabled (even though I didn't use it) so that my GPS would work fully while I was there (with offline maps).

The droid GPS won't get an initial position fix if the CDMA voice radio is disabled (doesn't matter if you have towers/signal or not). Once you have an initial position fix, you can flip airplane mode on, and the GPS will keep working. Just a weird quirk of the droid.

 

[erikfig]

Totally different phone, LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good stories in this thread!

 

[SGTiger]

I was just back from Canada where data roaming is expensive. I just clicked airplane mode, then activated wifi and I was good to go in the hotel, etc. No added data charges at all from VZ. I used to use Fring to Skype via wifi, but that's not available any more.

Do you mean the Fring app isn't available any more or that Fring doesn't work anymore?

 

[Droid101]

I know verizon will actually rent a satellite phone? Whatever that costs I don't have a clue but atleast you don't have to worry about loosing service lol.

But yes data and voice roaming is expensive especially on a smartphone I had to learn the hard way

 

[Jim 777]

If you check off airplane mode then turn wireless back on I'm pretty sure you've blocked the cell towers while leaving gps, wifi, etc open to you.

Totally different phone, ha.

So I tried this here at the house. I turned airplane mode on and then looked at Mobile Networks settings, it's disabled. Turned on the wifi and it was still disabled. This should keep me from incurring roaming charges, correct?

 

[compywiz]

I just did the same, enabled airplane mode, then was able to re-enable wifi and connect. This surprises me, as I figured it wouldn't allow me to do so. I called the phone and it went straight to voicemail, so the phone clearly wasn't enabled.

Now you just need a VoIP app that works over wifi.

Update: Confirming Touch To Talk works with airplane enabled over Wifi.