| When cell phones first entered the market, subscribers were encouraged to make calls in their home area. A home area was defined as a city, region, or state. Outside of that area, calls made on a cell phone would incur roaming charges. These roaming charges would sometimes be two to three times the amount that a call inside the home area would be per minute. Since these charges were so steep, wireless roaming was only used in emergency situations.
As the market for cell phones grew, so did the networks that the wireless companies owned. In an effort to capture more of the cell phone market, many service providers began to expand the home area for their cell phone customers. Nowadays, home area coverage offered by most wireless providers are quite extensive. Some providers even offer wireless roaming across north America which is essentially a free roaming plan.
Outside of the large home areas that are offered by many of the cell phone providers today is the concept of International roaming. International roaming allows a cell phone user to make calls globally without incurring roaming charges. While this is ideal for those who frequently travel the globe for business or pleasure, international roaming is extremely expensive. In Europe, where a national coverage area is nowhere near the geographic size of the U.S., there is quite a deal of anger towards the need to pay international roaming charges when traveling between these countries. The issue is so big that the European Union itself is looking into the issue rather intently to the point that they have issued a cap on fees that providers can charge customers for this feature.
Of course, in order to participate in a feature such as wireless roaming the customer has to have a roaming phone. Roaming phones are built with the technology to work between networks. For this to happen an appropriate SIM, or subscriber identity module, card must be installed. This is especially important for international roaming as cards that work in one country often do not work in another. Certain prepaid wireless plans do not offer wireless roaming to their customers. If roaming is a feature that will be necessary, make sure that you purchase a phone and a plan that allow for mobile roaming.
Even if the plan you purchased through your cell phone provider offers free nationwide roaming, you can still incur roaming charges. To provide a large area of coverage to their customers, most cell phone service providers rent antennas from other providers. If while roaming, you are using the tower of a company that charges for roaming, you may see these charges on your cell phone bill.
Wireless roaming can be tricky as well. If you are making calls from what the map shows as your coverage area, you can still be charged roaming fees. This works because when you are near the border of your home area, you may be connecting to a tower outside of your home area causing you to be charged roaming fees. This happens quite frequently and most service providers will work with the customer when this happens.
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