Travelling to India for 3 weeks

[Coolkris]

Hello,

Will be travelling to india for 3 weeks . Currently have a pay as you go plan from EE for my sim. How will roaming charges work while in India? Will I be charged for both incoming and outgoing calls/texts?

I won’t be getting that many calls so is it an option to keep sim in inactive state and enabling it sometimes?

[bristolian · Accepted solution]

Whilst receiving text messages is free globally, everything else will be chargeable whilst in India. The costs are outlined at ee.co.uk/help/help-new/roaming-costs > Choose India > Choose PAYG

Connecting to foreign networks is free, and is the means by which you have a connection in order to make & receive calls, or send & receive text messages. You can set an unconditional "divert all calls" to voicemail and prevent incoming calls ringing on your phone if you'd prefer - or you could allow them to reach your phone, and then choose whether to answer them (and pay the incoming call cost) or ignore them (and not)

The means by which you would keep your SIM in what you call an "inactive" state would be to enable flight mode and not connect to any Indian networks. If you do want to connect to Indian networks, ensure you have used your phone on EE's UK network before travelling - this is how roaming permissions are enable on PAYG.

[Coolkris]

If i dont answer the calls and someone leaves a voicemail while I am in India will that cause charges as well? Or it will add charges only if I listen to the voicemail?

Also by inactive sim i meant there is an option “Turn on this line” on iphone settings. 

[bristolian]

You will only be charged for the outbound call to voicemail to retrieve any messages. It's unfortunate that you're not on pay-monthly, where a 7day billing pass would enable access to your UK allowances for a single flat price, and remove much of the uncertainty.

I have no idea how Apple works, but I would suspect that's iOS' way of referring to flight mode. Try it in the UK before travelling, and see what the result is!