Going to italy with global droid...

Staying in airplane mode will keep ALL of the radios off, and avoid roaming charges. Of course, that brings your PDA phone down to just a PDA (which is useful by itself).

My PDA phone has Bluetooth and WiFi, as well as quadband GSM and 850/1900/2100 WDCMA. Each of the three can be turned on and off individually. You should have no trouble turning on WiFi for a hotspot, and off again.

Using the GPS receiver won't incur any charges, but you'll just have position (lattitude, longitude, and altitude), heading, and speed. The map that your position is placed on can be sent to you as data (radio on!), or preloaded from CD-ROM or SD memory chip (radio off!).

Of course, if you don't set up international roaming in advance, you may not be able to. For emergency services, call 112 instead of 911.

If you want to have service with a local Italian service provider, you'll need to have your global droid "subsidy unlocked" to accept a SIM of a provider other than VZW. Contact VZW Global Services for that, here's an account of someone who did.

COtech

 

The $1.29 per minute is the charge for voice calls and you can control that. What is more scary to me is roaming data charges. I usually take an add on roaming data package just in case I needed to use data when there is no WiFi available, specially for E-Mail. Do make sure that you have "data roaming" turned off on your phone unless you intend to use it, you don't need it for WiFi usage.

Co Tech gave some very good pointers, let us know if you have any questions.

 

Definitely keep your data disabled. Also, before you leave, download/install NetCounter from the Android Market. This will let you keep tabs of all your data use (cell and wifi) on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, so you won't have any nasty surprises when you come home.

 

To disable mobile network data on your phone without putting it on airplane mode... Settings, Data Manager, Data Delivery then from there make sure you uncheck "Data enabled" & "Data Roaming". This way your phone can still make calls and be used on WiFi.