Cell phone costs?

[Anonymous]

In all of the cost discussions I've seen here, people include the cost of a cell phone plan for AP, but I am not seeing that in the list of required costs and fees (I'm looking at AP in America brochures). Is that a mandatory cost to host families? Or is it not required but expected? Why don't folks just let the AP pay that cost herself? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Duh, you have to pay if you want to have a way of communicating with her while she's watching your kids. Realized that right after I hit submit.

[Anonymous]

If you expect your AP to be available to answer your calls about the kids, or use the GPS to get them places, then I think it's the HF's responsibility to pay for it. It's not officially required but just the decent thing to do, as it is work-related equipment/technology for the AP.

We added her to our family plan and it cost an extra $25/month. She came with her own iPhone. Not paying for it would have been weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you expect your AP to be available to answer your calls about the kids, or use the GPS to get them places, then I think it's the HF's responsibility to pay for it. It's not officially required but just the decent thing to do, as it is work-related equipment/technology for the AP.

We added her to our family plan and it cost an extra $25/month. She came with her own iPhone. Not paying for it would have been weird.

PP, if you happen to see this... how difficult was it to get her a number and when adding her does it allow you to cancel at any time or do you simply transfer the phone number to your next AP? Also, what carrier do you have, i was under the impression that foreign phones can be different and may only work with some carriers, no idea if that is true or not though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you expect your AP to be available to answer your calls about the kids, or use the GPS to get them places, then I think it's the HF's responsibility to pay for it. It's not officially required but just the decent thing to do, as it is work-related equipment/technology for the AP.

We added her to our family plan and it cost an extra $25/month. She came with her own iPhone. Not paying for it would have been weird.

PP, if you happen to see this... how difficult was it to get her a number and when adding her does it allow you to cancel at any time or do you simply transfer the phone number to your next AP? Also, what carrier do you have, i was under the impression that foreign phones can be different and may only work with some carriers, no idea if that is true or not though.

We use a T-Mobile family plan, month-to-month without a longer term contract which requires you to have your own unlocked phones. DH & I bought unlocked smart phones off Amazon and AP had an unlocked iPhone from home. I travel a lot and in every country I've visited other than the US, individuals own their own phones and prepay for services. So you can take your unlocked phone just about anywhere and buy a local sim. I'm sure there are some places and some phones for which this does not work, but I haven't encountered that scenario yet. When I travel for work, I take my normal smart phone and just swap out the sim for one I buy the first day I arrive.

The first weekend AP arrived here, we went to t-mobile, brought our documents & AP's and added her right there. She inserted the sim and it worked. Easy - much easier than getting her registered at the local community college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you expect your AP to be available to answer your calls about the kids, or use the GPS to get them places, then I think it's the HF's responsibility to pay for it. It's not officially required but just the decent thing to do, as it is work-related equipment/technology for the AP.

We added her to our family plan and it cost an extra $25/month. She came with her own iPhone. Not paying for it would have been weird.

PP, if you happen to see this... how difficult was it to get her a number and when adding her does it allow you to cancel at any time or do you simply transfer the phone number to your next AP? Also, what carrier do you have, i was under the impression that foreign phones can be different and may only work with some carriers, no idea if that is true or not though.

We use a T-Mobile family plan, month-to-month without a longer term contract which requires you to have your own unlocked phones. DH & I bought unlocked smart phones off Amazon and AP had an unlocked iPhone from home. I travel a lot and in every country I've visited other than the US, individuals own their own phones and prepay for services. So you can take your unlocked phone just about anywhere and buy a local sim. I'm sure there are some places and some phones for which this does not work, but I haven't encountered that scenario yet. When I travel for work, I take my normal smart phone and just swap out the sim for one I buy the first day I arrive.

The first weekend AP arrived here, we went to t-mobile, brought our documents & AP's and added her right there. She inserted the sim and it worked. Easy - much easier than getting her registered at the local community college.

We've had the same experience with all but one of our au pairs - that one thought her phone was unlocked but it wasn't. We have AT&T, so for the first weekend or so she had to use a "Go Phone" that we bought at Target for her (it wasn't nearly as nice as her phone). The Go Phones can be added to AT&T plans pretty easily (or could a few years ago when this happened). She called home and got a code or something to unlock her phone, and a few days later we could add her to our plan. Now we emphasize even more that an unlocked phone is a good idea. In the past if an au pair came without a phone we would use one of our "upgrades" to get her a phone, but AT&T has recently changed how that work their upgrades and phone purchases so I'm not sure if that would work anymore.

We have one line on our plan that has been an "au pair" line for five years. As one au pair leaves, the next one takes over the line.

[Anonymous]

We have have the same AP phone number on our plan for the last 7 years. There is no 'transfer' necessary, since it is our phone. I give it to AP when she starts, she gives it back when she leaves. It's never been a problem. 3 of our past APs bought a brand new iPhone right before leaving us, one came with an iPhone but did not activate it here, one bought an iPhone here a few months before leaving and activated her own plan (she was extending with another family).

No one has ever asked to use their own phone on our plan, but if that were the case and the phone was compatible, I would simply ask ATT to swap the phone on the plan and ask AP to pay for the activation. When AP leaves, I would ask ATT to activate the old phone back.

And to your initial question, it is correct that it is not required, but it is essential to the job so it should be the family's responsibility to pay, minimally for a voice and/or text plan as a mean a communication with the host parents. We are offering data for the first time this year, primarily because we have older kids who now all have iPhones, and I think it would be weird to have AP not have a smart phone/plan when my kids do...

[Anonymous]

We have both provided an older phone (one we upgraded from and kept around) and used phones that APs have brought. I think with Tmobile it's another $10/month? We just pop the SIM card into the phone we want to use - the phone company isn't involved, we just do it at home. It's easy.

The only time we've had an issue was with an AP leaving with an iphone she used with our SIM card and the Iphones use the phone account to associate for text messages, not the phone #, so that caused a problem where texts to the new AP were going to the old APs phone but it worked out - I think she just had to disconnect it in her Apple account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you expect your AP to be available to answer your calls about the kids, or use the GPS to get them places, then I think it's the HF's responsibility to pay for it. It's not officially required but just the decent thing to do, as it is work-related equipment/technology for the AP.

We added her to our family plan and it cost an extra $25/month. She came with her own iPhone. Not paying for it would have been weird.

PP, if you happen to see this... how difficult was it to get her a number and when adding her does it allow you to cancel at any time or do you simply transfer the phone number to your next AP? Also, what carrier do you have, i was under the impression that foreign phones can be different and may only work with some carriers, no idea if that is true or not though.

VERY few APs arrive with unlocked phones.

We just have a running AP phone. Goes from one to the next.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you expect your AP to be available to answer your calls about the kids, or use the GPS to get them places, then I think it's the HF's responsibility to pay for it. It's not officially required but just the decent thing to do, as it is work-related equipment/technology for the AP.

We added her to our family plan and it cost an extra $25/month. She came with her own iPhone. Not paying for it would have been weird.

PP, if you happen to see this... how difficult was it to get her a number and when adding her does it allow you to cancel at any time or do you simply transfer the phone number to your next AP? Also, what carrier do you have, i was under the impression that foreign phones can be different and may only work with some carriers, no idea if that is true or not though.

VERY few APs arrive with unlocked phones.

We just have a running AP phone. Goes from one to the next.

I've only had two but they both already had unlocked smart phones back home and I just asked if they planned on bringing them. The answer was yes. If the answer had been no, there was $150 unlocked smart phone we were going to buy off Amazon.