iPhone International Data Horror Story

[Madame Defarge]

I feel for you but AT&T is within their rights. You did use the service.

It sounds like he did every thing he could to make sure that he understood what the rate structure was before he left. It doesn't sound like AT&T properly disclosed the costs of overseas usage, at least not in a way that the average person can understand.

I disagree that AT&T "is within their rights" on this. $3000 is unreasonable and excessive, especially since Blackberry users aren't charged the same.

 

[Madame Defarge]

Just read the good news

Congrats!

 

[RedTomato]

These data rates are a nightmare. A SMS is basically about 300 bytes, meaning about 3500 of them to the MB. In the UK, they are about 10p or 12p each to send (free to receive).

So, the mobile companies charge 3500x £0.10 = £350 per megabyte of data! SMS is the most expensive data in the world in common use.

I used to be with 02, and aye, it was about £5 for 8 MB of data (web, email, but excluding SMS!)

Now, am with T-Mobile in the UK, and pay about £7.50 for 'unlimited data' per month (includes web, mail, MSN etc, but not SMS). There's actually a 'soft limit' of about 3 GB per month over the phone, but you can use more if you want on occasion. Not that I've managed to approach 3GB yet...

 

[nelly001]

Iphone international use ...catch 22

Reading these posts it seems that AT&T and Apple have almost made it impossible for us to use our iphones internationally without racking up data charges.
For us who want to use our iphone internationally for calls and only use the wireless connect to download data it is virtually impossible.

There is 'no way' of turning of the Edge network and stopping these data charges. If the iphone cannot find a wireless access point it automatically switches to Edge which means internationally we are always accessing data via edge whether we wish to or not.

We should have a choice in using our iphones internationally and be able to turn off the Edge network feature.

We need to all complain to AT&T and get them to add a disable feature for the Edge network. A setting that would enable wireless connect only.

Then we could use our iphones internationally without racking up data charges

 

[diamond.g]

Reading these posts it seems that AT&T and Apple have almost made it impossible for us to use our iphones internationally without racking up data charges.
For us who want to use our iphone internationally for calls and only use the wireless connect to download data it is virtually impossible.

There is 'no way' of turning of the Edge network and stopping these data charges. If the iphone cannot find a wireless access point it automatically switches to Edge which means internationally we are always accessing data via edge whether we wish to or not.

We should have a choice in using our iphones internationally and be able to turn off the Edge network feature.

We need to all complain to AT&T and get them to add a disable feature for the Edge network. A setting that would enable wireless connect only.

Then we could use our iphones internationally without racking up data charges

It isn't AT&T, there are other phones that allow you to disable (or prompt for) data usage. Apple needs to add it as an option.

 

[gceo]

The thing that really is WRONG is that Visual Voice Mail uses data. I can understand not using any Net features when abroad, but to be charged for getting Voicemail is ABSURD.

 

[Michael Idoyaga]

Ripped off by AT&T - $1,700 bill

I got a bill for $1,700.00 from AT&T.

There was the activation fee that they feel entitled to for making me wait five days, there were the eighty bucks I actually signed up for, there were mysterious charges with unintelligible acronyms, and then there was over $1300 for data consumption, charged by the kilobyte while I was in France for two weeks.

Before I left, I signed up for international service. I was given a choice: either I pay a buck and a half a minute for phone calls, or I pay five bucks a month to earn the right to pay only ninety-nine cents a minute. Outrageous, but I agreed to it. Since I go once a year to visit my stepmother, I chose the recurring plan. I budgeted for two, three hundred bucks of telephone service. I get a lot of calls because I’m a public defender. Nobody said a word about data. Nothing. And I never gave it any thought. I guess I assumed data would be unlimited like it is here.

OK, maybe that wasn’t too bright for a lawyer, but how would I have imagined they’d charge by the kilobyte? It’s like going out to a bar with your friends and being charged for beer by the spoonful.

When I got the bill, I was floored. I called to complain, and a sweet-sounding midwestern girl back-doored me into a different plan which lowered my bill to $611.00. An improvement, but still a rip-off.

This is beyond absurd, or silly, or bumbling, or overwhelmed. This is downright dishonest. This is larceny. This is like car salesmen in the seventies who asked whether you wanted tires with your new car. This should be a crime.

Whenever people ask to see my new toy, I show them all the cool features on my iPhone, but I tell them about the $1,700.00 bill, plus the dropped calls, plus the slow and intermittent EDGE network, and I tell them to wait until Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T is over and they go with other carriers. I can’t wait to get back with T-Mobile, myself.

 

[BornAgainMac]

It would be nice to have a applet on the iPhone that can alert you when you reach some bill threshold and a countdown to the next billing cycle.

 

[Partridge]

I got a bill for $1,700.00 from AT&T.
I never gave it any thought. I guess I assumed data would be unlimited like it is here.

And you're a laywer?

Everybody else charges for international data roaming as well. Everybody. No such thing as a free lunch.

 

[kdarling]

OK, maybe that wasn’t too bright for a lawyer, but how would I have imagined they’d charge by the kilobyte? It’s like going out to a bar with your friends and being charged for beer by the spoonful.

Alas, it's hard to be sympathetic. That was a pretty naive assumption that your data plan was good anywhere else.

So I'd say it's more like a person chatting up extra case details with their lawyer, and then being surprised that they got charged for every minute of conversation. Hey, you use the time, you pay the dime.



Then there's the poor fools who get on a cruise ship and talk on their cell phone for hours, thinking that roaming on the ship's cell costs nothing extra. Suprise! Sixty minutes at two bucks a minute adds up quickly! And Daddy's not happy...

 

[beate]

Reading these posts it seems that AT&T and Apple have almost made it impossible for us to use our iphones internationally without racking up data charges.
For us who want to use our iphone internationally for calls and only use the wireless connect to download data it is virtually impossible.

There is 'no way' of turning of the Edge network and stopping these data charges. If the iphone cannot find a wireless access point it automatically switches to Edge which means internationally we are always accessing data via edge whether we wish to or not.

We should have a choice in using our iphones internationally and be able to turn off the Edge network feature.

We need to all complain to AT&T and get them to add a disable feature for the Edge network. A setting that would enable wireless connect only.

Then we could use our iphones internationally without racking up data charges

There IS a solution. See below:
Sorry kdarling but I thought your reply to a different thread was needed here...

Other forums have mentioned this as well... temporarily suspending EDGE service.

They also pointed out that you have to be VERY particular to the ATT rep that you just want to suspend for a week or whatever. Otherwise some have had their data service dropped accidentally.

You still, of course, pay for the suspended time.

 

[ryanobjc]

I also have data charge problems.

I checked the roaming page, it said 'received texts free, sent in Canada .50' and then it said the pay-per-use data rate is 0.0195. At which point I thought "oh, thank god I'm not on a pay-per-use plan".

Surprise.

I need to call AT&T and dispute. I know they have the blackberry data plan, so I want on that, like some guy did. Then I plan on obtaining the turbo-sim and changing networks to t-mobile. That's right, I'm going to network unlock hack my phone and change networks. I may threaten them with this too. They can either have my continued patronage or their one time fee.

I really hate that Apple capitulated to AT&T - they are such a crappy "don't get it" network - I mean, Apple had them intro their first mass-market unlimited data plan. Really! T-mobile would have been better, with their unlimited data/messaging positioning and strong Wifi hotspot network.

Oh Apple, how thine has disappointed me. Turbo-sim, you are my new best friend.

 

[diamond.g]

I also have data charge problems.

I checked the roaming page, it said 'received texts free, sent in Canada .50' and then it said the pay-per-use data rate is 0.0195. At which point I thought "oh, thank god I'm not on a pay-per-use plan".

Surprise.

I need to call AT&T and dispute. I know they have the blackberry data plan, so I want on that, like some guy did. Then I plan on obtaining the turbo-sim and changing networks to t-mobile. That's right, I'm going to network unlock hack my phone and change networks. I may threaten them with this too. They can either have my continued patronage or their one time fee.

I really hate that Apple capitulated to AT&T - they are such a crappy "don't get it" network - I mean, Apple had them intro their first mass-market unlimited data plan. Really! T-mobile would have been better, with their unlimited data/messaging positioning and strong Wifi hotspot network.

Oh Apple, how thine has disappointed me. Turbo-sim, you are my new best friend.

Hey if you get one (Turbo SIM) let us no how it works. I travel internationally sometimes and would like to be able to take my phone and use a SIM from some provider, wherever I am.

 

[feelthefire]

Alright here's the deal. Blackberry data plans are NOTHING like the data plan the iPhone uses. Why? Because blackberry servers and service are ALREADY AVAILABLE in other countries. Half of that $70 cost goes to blackberry for server use (I believe it's $41 or something like that). The other half is used to pay off other carriers whose BLACKBERRY service you use. It is a different ball game because the blackberry was DESIGNED for people who do business constantly.

The iPhone isn't, and never will be, a truly business device. Its rate plans, available services, etc are CONSUMER services. You can't just "demand" a blackberry plan be applied to your phone, because you're paying for different things with a blackberry plan. It's irrelevant that it's available. Maybe when the iPhone is available overseas a similar partnership could be had, but I doubt it. There's too much money to be made off morons who don't understand how cell service works.

You NEVER assume the company is not going to charge you out your a$$ internationally.

Personally,I don't think the OPs bill should have been waived, and I don't think the more recent poster's should have been lowered. It's the consumer's responsibility to know what they signed up for and neither of these people bothered to do the math or read the fine print. You just KNOW that we're not hearing both sides of the story and the OP was whipping out his iPhone to flash to anyone who looked at him twice.

The attitude of entitlement today astounds me...and I'd hazard a guess that BOTH posters complaining about their exorbitant bills are a good deal older than I am.

 

[diamond.g]

Alright here's the deal. Blackberry data plans are NOTHING like the data plan the iPhone uses. Why? Because blackberry servers and service are ALREADY AVAILABLE in other countries. Half of that $70 cost goes to blackberry for server use (I believe it's $41 or something like that). The other half is used to pay off other carriers whose BLACKBERRY service you use. It is a different ball game because the blackberry was DESIGNED for people who do business constantly.

The iPhone isn't, and never will be, a truly business device. Its rate plans, available services, etc are CONSUMER services. You can't just "demand" a blackberry plan be applied to your phone, because you're paying for different things with a blackberry plan. It's irrelevant that it's available. Maybe when the iPhone is available overseas a similar partnership could be had, but I doubt it. There's too much money to be made off morons who don't understand how cell service works.

You NEVER assume the company is not going to charge you out your a$$ internationally.

Personally,I don't think the OPs bill should have been waived, and I don't think the more recent poster's should have been lowered. It's the consumer's responsibility to know what they signed up for and neither of these people bothered to do the math or read the fine print. You just KNOW that we're not hearing both sides of the story and the OP was whipping out his iPhone to flash to anyone who looked at him twice.

The attitude of entitlement today astounds me...and I'd hazard a guess that BOTH posters complaining about their exorbitant bills are a good deal older than I am.

Which I honestly feel is why Apple should have became a MVNO. I mean if Disney could become one, why couldn't Apple?

 

[himansk]

After reading these horror stories of huge bills last month, I decided not to use my iphone at all while i was on a month long trip overseas. I did not turn on roaming on the iphone, and used a local phone n sim for voice calls, and wifi on my iphone for internet. its better to pay for a local connection instead of a 1700-3000$ bill. The bill that included the first half of my trip has no excessive charges and I am happy to be using the iphone again after returning this weekend.

 

[/dev/toaster]

I agree with you on the web developer part though.

I'm a web designer and while I couldn't tell you the exact size of everything, I definitely have a rough idea of how big emails, web pages, etc are.

A rate of $.005/KB is $5/MB for those of you who don't do math. With the iPhone loading full web pages, you will burn through that data pretty quickly. He should have stopped and thought about it a bit after hearing the quote from AT&T.

I totally agree as well. When you are doing optimizations you need to know exactly how much you are serving. Just as a quick test, I walked over to a few designers and just asked them how much HTML we are serving per page. They gave me a figure that was dead on off the top of their head.

 

[feelthefire]

did anyone else notice the OP stated that he'd kill 20MB of included data in "a matter of days" but can't seem to figure out how he killed 600MB of data in a week? When I had a blackberry which I only used to access WAP sites I killed 25mb a day. I could easily see how with full internet he toasted 100mb a day. He had to know how much he was using, even before "blind" usage like the visual voicemail.

Caveat Emptor.

 

[robvia]

I also just returned from a 1 week vacation to the UK. I sent 5 text messages, and we made 1 phone call back to the states. I turned off the e-mail account, and the phone was off most of the time. I still managed to use .1 MB of data. I called and asked if I was going to get charged a ton. My billing cycle ends on the 21st, so we'll know in a couple days once the bill is viewable on the web. The girl on the phone said I should be ok and not to be a nervous wreck.

Lucky for us, the people we stayed with have a plan that lets them call the states for free, and we used the internet to stay in touch.

I wrote Apple before leaving saying they need an option to turn Edge off or a Wireless Only option.

 

[ryanobjc]

Alright here's the deal. Blackberry data plans are NOTHING like the data plan the iPhone uses. Why? Because blackberry servers and service are ALREADY AVAILABLE in other countries. Half of that $70 cost goes to blackberry for server use (I believe it's $41 or something like that). The other half is used to pay off other carriers whose BLACKBERRY service you use. It is a different ball game because the blackberry was DESIGNED for people who do business constantly.

The iPhone isn't, and never will be, a truly business device. Its rate plans, available services, etc are CONSUMER services. You can't just "demand" a blackberry plan be applied to your phone, because you're paying for different things with a blackberry plan. It's irrelevant that it's available. Maybe when the iPhone is available overseas a similar partnership could be had, but I doubt it. There's too much money to be made off morons who don't understand how cell service works.

You NEVER assume the company is not going to charge you out your a$$ internationally.

Personally,I don't think the OPs bill should have been waived, and I don't think the more recent poster's should have been lowered. It's the consumer's responsibility to know what they signed up for and neither of these people bothered to do the math or read the fine print. You just KNOW that we're not hearing both sides of the story and the OP was whipping out his iPhone to flash to anyone who looked at him twice.

The attitude of entitlement today astounds me...and I'd hazard a guess that BOTH posters complaining about their exorbitant bills are a good deal older than I am.

The whole Blackberry thing is just TCP/IP data. Your BES is located at your company, and when you are roaming internationally you still need to data-phone-home.

Anyways, I have an update on my situation. I called the AT&T rep over my $289 bill, explained myself, that I didn't quite realize, and read their roaming site, etc. She looked at my bill, and comped me, so now my bill is $119, which I will of course pay.

Next month there is 53.9 MB of Canadian data service, vs the 8.7 MB or so from this month. I estimate that is about $800ish. She promised to call me after the next bill cycle to go over the bill with me and see what we can do. She said her credit limit is low, but she would need to get her manager's approval - she indicated that he is pretty "cool" just as long as I "learned my lesson". Which indeed I did.

So, be polite, explain yourself, and hopefully they can do something. And certainly don't do it again.

 

[feelthefire]

The whole Blackberry thing is just TCP/IP data. Your BES is located at your company, and when you are roaming internationally you still need to data-phone-home.

Nope. Push email uses blackberry servers too. It's why for example with a sprint blackberry even on an employee plan you still pay the $40 surcharge that goes to RIM. This is how it was explained to me when I tried to figure out the costs of getting blackberries for employees at the company I work for.

You still use data phone home but it phones home to the blackberry service IN THE COUNTRY you're in, hence it's using local data, which gets charged back to your host carrier at home. Local data costs less than an international call.

If it just uses pure data, like the iPhone, they are going to charge you the normal data rate on the home network plus the cost of the service wherever you are, because they effectively get billed by the guest carrier for it.

blackberry stuff doesn't work exactly the same as internet on other phones. It is usually more expensive to have a phone with BES than straight email, so I guess if everyone was willing to pay more for their service up front maybe they'd get a break on the international plans too.

 

[PupnTaco]

did anyone else notice the OP stated that he'd kill 20MB of included data in "a matter of days" but can't seem to figure out how he killed 600MB of data in a week?

I should've clarified by saying, "if I used 600MB over a two-week period, 20MB would be gone in less than one day."

 

[triallaw]

iPhone Horror story

I had the same thing just happen to me. I had a Blackberry with the unlimited data plan. I go to Colombia about once a month. I visit a couple of web sites and get email. I bring my laptop to do most of my work. Mostly it is between airports and on the road. 5 days in Colombia and my bill was $8000. For the same data!!!!!!!!!!! They must be insane. I am going to file an FCC complaint and go to my friend at CNN. Also, my partner is a trial lawyer in Atlanta and very well known. I can afford to pay it but this a "principal" issue. AT&T and other carriers have found a way to commit legal crime. Most people don't understand that charging by the kilobyte is like charging by the word for how much you speak.

Let's get a bunch of others together and we'll file a class action lawsuit!

 

[avaloncourt]

I am going to file an FCC complaint and go to my friend at CNN.

You're going to file an FCC complaint for using service in a region that the FCC has nothing to do with? Maybe you meant FTC. At any rate, you signed the contract.

 

[earnjam]

Jesus people...not this again. AT&T even sent an email out warning people about this. (I got one anyway)

They have international data plans. It's not AT&T's fault if you didn't read your contract.

Let this thread die already.