Will my mobile phone work in Bulgaria?
Usually visiting a different country comes with the great unknown of what to expect. In this article, we are going to tell you all about roaming expenses and overall phone communication in Bulgaria.
Chances are that you are coming on a holiday to Bulgaria in one of our outstanding rental villas for the first time, so you are not exactly aware of what to expect from our country. In our blog, you can find more useful articles that cover all the necessary topics, in this particular one we look into one of the most important questions out guests find themselves wondering: Will my phone work in Bulgaria?
Roaming conditions in Bulgaria
In order to give you a better understanding of the roaming conditions, we will look into the two most common situations. The EU roaming charges and the Russian roaming conditions, since the greater proportion of our guests, come both from the EU and Russia.
To start off with the EU. It is important to note that the EU has a regulation policy called “roam like at home” which implies that no matter where you are, as long as you are in the borders of the EU, you can talk with any other EU county without paying any additional charges. This means that whenever you are outside of your home country you can still conduct calls on the very same terms you have negotiated with your mobile service provider. Those rules cover not only calls but also text messaging and even the use of internet data. The same thing applies when a person, citizen of the EU calls you and contacts you as well, so they would not have to pay anything different than what has been set in their mobile plan by their provider. This also applies if you are not sharing a provider of telecommunication services.
It is actually a great asset since you pay what you would normally pay at home while traveling the EU. Naturally, you have to pay the roaming fee to your mobile provider, since they always charge for the roaming option in the tariff plans they offer. Apart from that small tax, you would actually pay the standard tariff of cents per minute during a call. So it would really make contacting home a really easy task.
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The roam like at home options is actually suitable for tourists and travelers that are leaving the boundaries of their home country for a short while. It is not suitable or applied to people who permanently live abroad. There is, of course, a mechanism to prevent misuse of this outstanding opportunity. Once you cross any border in the EU, you get an automatic message, informing you about the terms of your roaming options at the given moment.
We have already mentioned that with the roam like at home option you can freely talk and text people back home, there are some restrictions as to the data usage. Make sure you contact your provider and figure out just how much data in roaming conditions you are granted access to. That is actually of significant importance since data connection in roaming, that has not come under the preferential conditions is actually really expensive. Way more expensive then you can probably imagine. In fact, some tourists come back home to a phone bill of several thousand Euro, just because they were not cautious enough with the date they have used while abroad. Your service provider should easily be able to tell how much data you are allowed to use. So make sure you examine your tariff plan, contact your provider or simply limit your access to the internet through the data connection.
Those of you, who are using a standard pre-paid card back in your home country, the same rules for roaming like at home apply to you as well, but the use of free data connection is really shortened. There are different possible data plans and tariffs. But one thing is common for data in roaming. The amount of data is really shortened and your provider is supposed to send you a text message warning when you are about to go over your limit. Keep track of that and expect the message.
If you are an extensive traveler maybe you should keep in mind that if you have not been to your home country, and the country you receive a mobile connection from, for over 4 months, additional charges may and most probably will apply to your calls and texts. The costs of roaming outside of the EU are really high. So make sure if you are planning on taking a day off to Turkey and the capital city Istanbul, while on your holiday in a private rental villa with a swimming pool in Bryastovets, Bulgaria, to read into the additional charges that may apply to your phone bill.
Roaming for Russian citizens in Bulgaria
Unlike the preferential conditions inside the EU, the roaming for Russian citizens depends entirely on the tariffs by their mobile providers. There some special offers, but they depend entirely on special customer plans and tariffs. The solutions to the problem are two. The first option is for Russian citizens to contact their local provider and have special roaming conditions tariff settled for them. The second option, which is quite suitable for tourists from all over the world is buying a pre-paid card in Bulgaria.
The prepaid cards come in a large variety of options. There are cards that include both minutes and text messages. There are some that cover only the data usage and there are some that cover the three main means of telecommunication – the texts, calls and internet access.
Prepaid mobile plans in Bulgaria
Usually, those prepaid cards come cheap and 8 Bulgarian leva can cover about 300 minutes, 100 text messages and 300 MB’s of data. Which is not quite a lot of data, to be honest, but it serves its purposes. That is just the average price for a kit like that. There are some promotions and bargains that can prove to be really cost-efficient. Some tourists, for example, prefer to buy themselves a really large data package and conduct all their calls and text messages through social media and the available internet means of communication. This is not a bad idea, considering the limitless options of communication that the internet offers.
Some of those prepaid cards come with a special roaming feature that covers the EU telecommunication net as well and the ones in Turkey and Russia. This is mainly the reason why tourists that come from Russia prefer those packets. They are really convenient, really affordable and suit their needs just perfectly. The average cost of a basic package that offers 300 minutes in EU, Russia, and Turkey, has some 6000 MB’s of data and text messaging comes at a price of about 50 Bulgarian leva. This may seem like a lot but for tourists that come from Russia or Turkey, it is actually an outstanding bargain since the standard roaming tariffs that apply in their countries are a lot more expansive.
The opportunity to buy a prepaid data card is also convenient for citizens of countries that are members of the EU who simply got a really small amount of data in their tariffs and plans.
Nowadays communications and access to the internet take up a central place in people’s lives. It is of huge importance to have easy access and connection to anyone. The roaming options listed above give you just that, so you can enjoy your peaceful holiday in the private rental villas in Bryastovets, Sunny Beach area and still keep in touch with your family and relatives.
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