”I was going to go from the UK to France and wanted to know how long it would take to switch sim cards. I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 unlocked, is there anything else I need to do?” I was asked this question by an acquaintance and decided to research on the same. Their doubt is valid as it takes at least 2 hours to switch from one country to another.

Silky Terrier Dog Breed Playing Aro... Silky Terrier Dog Breed Playing Around

It’s not just a matter of switching sim cards, but also involves several other steps that need to be taken into account before you actually cross the border with your device. The same goes for the old and more traditional roaming via analog networks – connection to a cellular network that is not your own.

The switching process can take up to 4 hours sometimes, so it’s pretty common for people traveling abroad to carry two mobile phones with them – one for home use and another specifically used when out of the country. It does become somewhat tedious, especially since most modern devices are equipped with dual sim card slots. That way you can keep both numbers active without having to worry about transferring data back and forth every time you leave the house or go on vacation.

Phone Setup before Switching Sim Cards

While this may only be relevant if you’re looking into preparing your phone before leaving, just in case there’s no signal once on French ground, it’s something worth mentioning. If you’re using an iPhone, for example, by default the internet settings are set to roam when connecting to other cellular networks outside of your home carrier.

To avoid this, you’ll need to change the ‘roaming’ setting in your phone to off. Otherwise, every time you connect to a new 3G or 4G network not provided by your carrier (in essence any network that isn’t yours), your iPhone will automatically download and handle the data transfer, which can get really expensive very quickly.

If we’re talking about an Android device, then the process is very similar – it’s just done differently. First of all open Settings and go into Cellular Network or Mobile Networks and look for Data Roaming (it may be listed under More… depending on your device and Android version). Here you’ll find a check box allowing you to enable/disable roaming when abroad.