''Five dollars a day to use your normal plan overseas is the cost of a coffee in New York or London. But it's hard to put a price on having your smartphone on you to keep in touch with friends and share your holiday snaps on Facebook and Instagram,'' said Mr Morrow. Australian Communications Consumer Action Network spokesman Asher Moses said it was good too see a telco taking action on the ''global roaming rip-off'' but said roaming charges are still too high. ''Consumers are being taken for a ride by providers addicted to the massive profits derived from the global roaming rort. Vodafone customers are rightly baffled when they go overseas and discover the telco has a presence, but they can't use their own plans.'' Mr Moses said telco profit margins for global roaming are up to 400 per cent higher than from local calls. Providers claimed they were simply passing on the costs from international carriers but Mr Moses said it wasn't clear how such exorbitant fees are derived.

In July this year Vodafone posted a major loss as customers continue to depart the struggling brand due to network failure issues. One of the company's joint owners said 551,000 customers left Vodafone in the first six months of 2013. ''We are recovering a brand,'' said Mr Morrow. ''We have to have points of difference.'' Under new rules to be introduced in September, major telcos will be forced to warn customers about international roaming costs when they travel internationally. The International Mobile Roaming standard, introduced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, is designed to protect Australians from receiving unexpected bills and to stop telcos gouging consumers on roaming charges.

The new standard was announced following reports that complaints about roaming charges had increased by almost 70 per cent in 2011-12 to more than 4100. Mr Moses said some of the charges his organisation knew about where absurd, including a Sydney man who was charged $9000 after a day trip to Singapore for work. The money was automatically direct debited from his credit card. For Sydney-based music producer Sameer Sengupta, a trip to Europe almost cost the same as the airfare itself. After spending a month overseas, Mr Sengupta returned home to a $1500 mobile phone bill from Optus. ''I was checking emails on my phone and doing the odd web browsing,'' said Mr Sengupta.

''What I didn't realise was that the I would get charged for receiving incoming calls.'' Optus' consumer business division head, Vicki Brady said: ''We welcome today's announcement on the simplification for global roaming in selected countries. Optus is working towards a more comprehensive international roaming solution in the coming months.'' Loading ACCAN says mobile phone users have three options to keep costs down while overseas: Buy a local SIM card when you arrive at your destination to access cheap local rates (requires unlocked handset). Buy a pre-paid roaming SIM card before you go from providers such as TravelSIM, GoSIM, RoamingSIM or GoTalk. Activate global roaming with your normal provider but beware the potential for high charges.

Travellers should also try to use free Wi-Fi hotspots where possible to access the web, check email and make international calls using applications like Skype or Facetime. If you are global roaming with your normal provider, use your phone mainly for SMS (check costs) and switch off your voicemail as well as "data roaming" (found under network settings on your handset).