Travel Tips

Before leaving Singapore for your holiday or business trip, ensure that you have activated International Roaming or Pay-As-You-Roam on your mobile phone to stay connected while overseas. 

Here are some tips to control your roaming data charges:

• Log on to free data access at WiFi hotspots in public areas like shopping malls, cafes, and the airport.
• Ensure that you are connected to Wi-Fi by identifying the Wi-Fi symbol on your mobile home screen. If this symbols switches to another symbol while you are surfing, it means that you are incurring data charges.
  
• Exit all applications that consume data like GPS, social networking and instant messaging services, as they may consume data even when on standby mode.
  
• Before embarking on your trip, sign up for the most suitable data roaming service from StarHub that offers the best-value plans and services. Certain data roaming promotions do not required sign-ups, for example, promotions with Vodafone or Conexus partners.
• Identify which roaming operators will give you the best value and change your network connection settings to Manual, to ensure that you only log on to your preferred roaming operators. 

For Android users, go to "Settings" ⇒ "Wireless & network settings" ⇒ "Network operators" ⇒ "Search Mode" ⇒ "Select manually" and look for your preferred roaming operator.

For iPhone/iPad users, go to "Settings" ⇒ "Carrier" ⇒ Switch off "Automatic", and look for your preferred roaming operator.  

• 100MB data is enough for the following combined activities: 40 emails (100KB/email), 24 emails with attachments (500KB/email), 80 web browsing activities (250KB/page), 40 photo downloads from social media services (500KB/download), 40 low-resolution photo uploads (1MB/upload) and 200 instant messages (20KB/message)
• Set a daily data limit in your Roam Manager app so that you are alerted when your limit has been exceeded.
• Limit your data roaming usage to $100 per bill cycle, by opting into the DataRoam Cap service.
• If you don't need to surf the net on your phone, switch off data roaming to prevent any accidental data usage.

For Android users, go to "Settings" ⇒ "Wireless & network settings" ⇒ "Mobile networks" ⇒ uncheck "Data enabled".  

For iPhone/iPad users, go to "Settings" ⇒ "General" ⇒ "Network" ⇒ Turn off "Cellular Data".