Bell Canada Offers International Mobile Roaming Option, Reduces Data Rates

It’s one of the biggest challenges faced by international road warriors – mobile roaming charges that add up quickly as they travel the globe. 

Bell Canada customers, however, now have the option to simplify the sometimes confusing roaming policies that come with international business trips. The company launched Travel Data Passes for mobile roaming -- a new program that eliminates overage charges, tracks real-time data usage and enables customers to add data passes on the go, if needed.

"Bell is committed to ensuring international roaming is affordable and worry-free for our mobile customers. With real-time usage updates, Travel Data Passes make it easy to buy and manage the data you need no matter where you may roam," said Wade Oosterman, president of Bell Mobility and Residential Services, and chief brand officer at Bell.

According to the company, Bell mobile customers can purchase Travel Data Passes before or during travel using their mobile self-serve app. If they haven’t purchased a Travel Data Pass when using their phone internationally, the company automatically sends them a notification via free text message with information on how to buy a pass.

Additionally, Bell customers can check data usage in real time. The company also will send updates when they’ve reached 80 percent and 100 percent of their data consumption when roaming. If a customer hasn’t purchased a Travel Data Pass and continues to roam, they will be notified when they've used $25 of data and will have data service suspended when they reach $100.

Bell also announced data roaming price reductions to more international destinations. The price has dropped from $75 for 100 MB to $30 for 50 MB in Zone 1 (which includes the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany and most other European countries; Mexico; China; Turkey; Australia and New Zealand; and other worldwide destinations).

"Bell continues to work with international telecom suppliers to cut the cost of roaming to the places worldwide that Canadians travel to the most,” Oosterman said. “We started with the United States and Caribbean sun destinations earlier this year, and we're pleased to extend data roaming price reductions to Europe, Mexico, China and other major international destinations today."