Thousands of us have come back from holiday with stinging sunburn only to be stung once more by the size of our mobile-phone bills, but new technology can slash the cost of making calls when abroad.

Holidaymakers can now ring home for free using mobiles that route calls over the internet, using “voice over internet protocol” or Voip.

Many consumers are already familiar with Voip because they use it to make cheap phone calls from home over their high-speed broadband internet connections, but the technology is now coming to mobiles.

Manufacturers are launching handsets that can send and receive calls and texts over the internet whenever they are in range of a so-called hot spot.

AQL (tel.aql.com), a British internet telephony company, has just launched a mobile internet voice-and-text service for £2 a month. You need a Voip handset, such as the UT StarCom 3000, which AQL is selling as part of its package for £149 plus Vat. Calls and texts to other Voip phones are free, while texts to normal mobiles cost between 5p and 12p a minute and calls cost 8p to 20p. Calls to a UK landline would generally cost about 1p a minute, compared with more than £1 with some traditional mobiles.

Another big difference is that these charges remain the same wherever you are in the world because the internet knows no geographical boundaries.

AQL is offering £10 of call credits and 200 free text messages to conventional mobiles as part of its package.

The disadvantage of a Voip phone, however, is that it works only if you are within range of a signal, so experts predict that mobiles combining the new technology with traditional networks, such as BT’s Fusion and Nokia’s 6136, will become increasingly popular. They switch seamlessly between the internet and traditional networks as they move in and out of range. This should help people save a small fortune on calls made abroad.

If the hotel or resort you are at offers broadband internet access you could also send and receive e-mails using a hand-held computer. The cost usually depends on the amount of data you send or download. If you keep your e-mails pithy and solely text-based, it should be a lot cheaper than voice calls.

Another option is mobile e-mail. Network operator 3 (three.co.uk) is offering mobile e-mail for an extra £5 a month on top of its monthly tariffs, so, rather than paying for expensive voice calls, it makes sense to e-mail people on holiday.

Some network operators restrict mobile e-mail services to the UK, however, so check with your operator before signing up. T-Mobile, for example, allows customers to use mobile e-mail only on a pay-as-you-go basis at a rate of £7.50 per megabyte (Mb) of data used.

Robert Rawlinson, managing director of Mobileshop.com, an independent retailer, said: “As well as using e-mail services, it makes sense to send texts. Texting the UK is much cheaper than calling — texts from abroad range from 25p to 40p while call charges range from about 50p to £2, depending on the network.”

If all this new technology is beyond you, you can still keep call costs down by investigating what special deals your network operator is offering. Several have reduced their rates recently under pressure from the European Union.

European network operators make €8.5 billion (£5.8 billion) a year from so-called roaming charges to customers who make and receive calls while abroad.

Viviane Reding, the EU’s feisty information society and media commissioner, has taken on the industry and is threatening to cap charges at about 70% of current levels.

The companies are up in arms and have lobbied successfully for an extra six months to bring prices down voluntarily.

For example, with Vodafone Passport you pay a 75p connection fee per call, then whatever you usually pay per minute in the UK. If you have unused minutes from your monthly allowance, your foreign call might not cost more than the connection fee. Many countries are excluded from this scheme, however.

Orange offers pay-monthly “travel talk bundles” for European travellers. For example, Travel Talk 25 costs £15 and buys you 25 minutes for making and receiving calls. After that normal roaming charges of 70p a minute apply. Or you could buy 75 roaming texts for £15.

O2 customers who do a lot of travelling and plan to use their mobiles a lot should consider signing up for its International Travel Service. For an extra £2.99 a month you can enjoy 40% off calls made abroad.

Don’t assume that your mobile will automatically be able to handle calls when abroad. Sometimes you have to get your operator to activate the roaming capability a few days before you set off.

Of course, the best course of action might be to keep the thing switched off and simply enjoy your holiday.