My wife and I are soon taking a trip to Europe. Ive been told that AT&T fees are charged for simply keeping the phone "ON" while overseas. Is this true? Excluding any calls made or received, including txt'ing...are there any hidden charges for keeping the phone on while out of the country? Thanks.
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Overseas iPhone charges?
- Thread starter DougY
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You could leave your phone at home and pickup a pay as you go phone and use it while you are there, it will be far cheapermthen buying a travel pack from your current carrier
one of my customers went to England with his Iphone and recieved a huge bill when
He returned. He had bought a travel pack but went over the minutes that came with the travel pack.
one of my customers went to England with his Iphone and recieved a huge bill when
He returned. He had bought a travel pack but went over the minutes that came with the travel pack.
Be sure to turn cell data OFF
Roaming data charges are where the real moneymaker for domestic providers lies. AT&T even tries to 'reduce' the price by offering a 200MB for $200 plan, which is nothing short of a rip off.
Overseas charges:
The notoriously high charges are for cellular data - 200MB of data usage is something like $1000 or more at standard international roaming rates.
To avoid this make sure you have Data Roaming set to off (should be the default position on recent phones.
Other overseas charges:
1. International calls in our out vary in price by location. Typically around $1.50/minuite. A small discount is available with a $5/month international roaming voice plan. Check ATT site for International Roaming to get exact rates by country. See # 3 below.
2. Texts - prices vary but are usually $0.50 for outgoing texts and incoming get charged at same rate as at home (i.e. no charge if you have unlimited texting or are within plan limits at home).
3. Voicemail and missed calls. If your phone is on and rings through you will be charged for the call even if you do not answer it, this includes the time the caller spends leaving voicemail. Plus if you have Data Roaming off you won't be able to retrieve your voice mail using the visual voice mail but rather you'll have to call and check messages as you used to - and pay the international rate for that. For this reason you should consider leaving the phone off when you can not answer it. If it is off so calls go straight to voice mail you will not incur any charges. OTOH you might not know you have messages if the data roaming is off so you might want to leave a voicemail answering message indicating that and telling them to send a text message. I don't know if you disable voice mail temporarily but you might look into that.
The notoriously high charges are for cellular data - 200MB of data usage is something like $1000 or more at standard international roaming rates.
To avoid this make sure you have Data Roaming set to off (should be the default position on recent phones.
Other overseas charges:
1. International calls in our out vary in price by location. Typically around $1.50/minuite. A small discount is available with a $5/month international roaming voice plan. Check ATT site for International Roaming to get exact rates by country. See # 3 below.
2. Texts - prices vary but are usually $0.50 for outgoing texts and incoming get charged at same rate as at home (i.e. no charge if you have unlimited texting or are within plan limits at home).
3. Voicemail and missed calls. If your phone is on and rings through you will be charged for the call even if you do not answer it, this includes the time the caller spends leaving voicemail. Plus if you have Data Roaming off you won't be able to retrieve your voice mail using the visual voice mail but rather you'll have to call and check messages as you used to - and pay the international rate for that. For this reason you should consider leaving the phone off when you can not answer it. If it is off so calls go straight to voice mail you will not incur any charges. OTOH you might not know you have messages if the data roaming is off so you might want to leave a voicemail answering message indicating that and telling them to send a text message. I don't know if you disable voice mail temporarily but you might look into that.