Are you thinking about enjoying your vacation in an exotic country or getting away from your routine by exploring new places? If you’re traveling by plane abroad, there’s a symbol that should appear on your screen so you can use it wherever you go, receiving messages, calls, or connecting to the internet. It’s the R symbol that should appear on your screen before you board the plane or when you arrive at your destination. If it doesn’t appear, you’ll need to activate an option on your smartphone, but don’t worry, it’s very easy to do from your settings.
If you see this symbol in your own country, it’s normal and you won’t be charged extra. Sometimes it’s because you have one carrier that uses another’s coverage without affecting your bill. If you haven’t guessed, we’ll tell you now: this symbol means roaming, or data roaming.
What is the R on your phone, and how to activate this feature?
Roaming (R) is the feature that allows phones to connect to networks in other countries or regions outside your carrier’s main network. It allows you to access mobile data and receive texts and calls when you land, even if you’re in an area where your carrier doesn’t have coverage.
To use all of your phone’s features in another country, you’ll need to activate roaming. If you don’t, you won’t be able to connect to the internet and will have problems with your calls abroad. However, if you don’t want to connect to the internet or if you face additional charges on your bill, such as if you’re outside the European Union, where everything is much more expensive, we recommend turning off roaming and using airplane mode on your phone.
The way to activate roaming may depend on your device, but it is generally as follows:
- Go to your smartphone settings
- Tap on Mobile Networks
- Scroll down until you find data roaming
- Click on this option and activate it
- It will appear that it is always activated
If you’re unsure whether you have roaming enabled on your phone because you don’t currently see the R at the top of the screen among the symbols on your phone, you can check by following the path we explained above and activate it if you wish. If you don’t want to have it enabled all the time to save data or battery, you can set it to airplane mode whenever you want.
Don’t forget that if you travel to countries in the European Union, you will be charged the same as your operator in your country, perhaps with certain limits on reasonable use that would be good to know if your trip is long. However, if you travel abroad, you should be careful because internet connections and other communications can be very expensive, which could mean a big shock on your phone bill.
