When I bought my Iphone I was told by the salesperson that it was great for world travel. In getting ready for it's first trip to England, my boyfriend took his in and was told he has to pay $60 to buy a data package, $0.99/min for calls and .50 per text message. This seems very expensive. Is there any way around these fees?
Thanks in advance,
Laura
There are two roaming data packages: one is $25/month for 20MB/month, and one is $60/month for 50MB/month. If you have any thought of using the iPhone away from a wifi connection, you'll need one of these. The data roaming charges are insane, so even if you are very careful, you can end up with $100s of charges. The catch with the data plans is that you have to sign up for 12 months, you can't buy it for one trip then cancel it.
If you plan to travel outside the US on a fairly regular basis, I highly recommend getting one of the data roaming plans. 20MB isn't much, but if you turn off EDGE and only use it when you have to - avoiding up or downloading photos/YouTube and the like - you can get by for a week or so. It'll cost you $300 over the course of a year, but you could easily rack up that much in roaming charges in a day or two without even trying. The 50MB plan obviously gives you more leeway, but whichever way you go you should reset your counters when you get on the plane to leave, and check them religiously because, once you use up your allowance, you're back to paying $s per Kb.
If you don't buy the data roaming package then turn off EDGE when you get on the plane and don't turn it on again until you get off the plane back in the U.S. and A. You can still leave EDGE turned off and access wifi, which is very prevalent in the UK but typically comes at a cost, even in Starbucks. You can buy blocks of wifi usage from many different providers, which may work for you if you are going to be pretty static and can get to your provider's hot spot regularly.
I believe AT&T's international calling/texting charges are pretty customary.
FWIW, the iPhone
is a great phone to travel with. BUT, you have to understand the data issues. I was in London and needed shoe repair after jamming my heel in a revolving door. I used the Map function to find a shoe bar and they nailed my heel back on for free. It's also useful to find the pub that everyone's meeting at.