How One Cellphone Can Be a Cost-Effective Step for Avoiding Unnecessary Expenses Abroad

Horror stories continue to reach me about international travelers who return home to find cellphone telephone bills for hundreds of dollars in roaming charges. Even persons who are sensitively aware of the need to keep the cellphone turned off when they travel abroad, may nevertheless incur charges for negligent actions like turning the phone on for a few seconds to check the time, or glance momentarily at e-mail, all of which "registers" the phone with a local carrier, and creates roaming charges for later incoming calls that you don't answer or even know about.

Without going into that arcane subject, I have been impressed by the arguments made for purchase of an international cell phone called Mobal for $49 ( www.mobal.com/international-cell-phones/ ). It works, apparently, in more than 190 countries, and once you've paid the $49 to buy it, you incur no charges other than the per-minute fees for actual use of the phone: no monthly fees, no minimum usage fees, no contract fees, no roaming charges.

With purchase of the Mobal, you are assigned a unique international telephone number, which remains yours for life. When you return from a trip, you simply stick the Mobal in a desk drawer to await being taken out for another trip.

Am I missing something here? Are there major drawbacks to use of a Mobal? Anything that the sales literature for the device fails to mention? I'd be happy to receive comments from readers, but pending their receipt, I'm giving serious thought to buying a Mobal for my own next international trip.