using my 3g overseas (australia)?

[jrm27]

Hi all:

I'm goign on a business trip in two weeks to Australia (from the US). Does anyone know of a good international plan from ATT for the iphone so I can call my wife and check my email without having to mortgage everything I own for a month? Any experience you might want to share?

-jon

 

[MikeyTree]

There's some good information about "international" plans from AT&T here. There are also some good tips on what to do when travelling here.

Even with their World Traveler plan, roaming is still $1.29 per minute in Australia. I don't know whether you'd also be charged Australia-to-U.S. long distance.

There are data packages available that would enable you to check your email. Not that the amount of data you get is miniscule, so if you often get photos, videos, or large documents in your email, a single email could eat up a large chunk of your data. Make sure you turn off data roaming, and set your phone to only check email when you manually tell it to. Then try to do so mainly when you're on wifi.

If you use data without a plan, or go over the limit of a plan you buy, you could end up paying literally thousands of dollars extra.

If you're going to be in places with wifi, like many hotels, you're probably best off trying to use Skype or one of the other VOIP apps/services.

Hi all:

I'm goign on a business trip in two weeks to Australia (from the US). Does anyone know of a good international plan from ATT for the iphone so I can call my wife and check my email without having to mortgage everything I own for a month? Any experience you might want to share?

-jon

 

[skubish]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

Use skype

 

[jrm27]

This is going to sound horribly noobish... but I've not used skype before. Can i use skype to call any phone? I thought it was mainly used by people who had skype to call other people with skype.

Thanks for the resources, I'll cehck them out!

Is there a way to check out my average monthly data usage?

 

[goosnarrggh]

This is going to sound horribly noobish... but I've not used skype before. Can i use skype to call any phone? I thought it was mainly used by people who had skype to call other people with skype.

Thanks for the resources, I'll cehck them out!

Is there a way to check out my average monthly data usage?

Skype is used to call other Skype users for free.

Additionally, it can be used to call regular telephones for much cheaper rates than what AT&T would charge you for international roaming.

You can purchase Skype plans based on the destination where you anticipate most of your calls will be directed to, rather than the origin where the calls are coming from.

So, for example, with the $2.95 per month US/Canada unlimited plan, you could place as many calls to telephones located in the US or Canada as you want, wherever you are in the world. (Of course, if the WiFi access point charges you for access to the Internet, you'd have to pay for that separately.) Calls to locations outside the US and Canada would be charged at a pay-per-use rate - for example, calls to Australian telephones would cost between $0.02 and $0.67 per minute depending on what type of line you're calling.

Or you could go for the $12.95 World Unlimited plan, and place unlimited calls to any of 40 countries around the world, including both landlines and mobiles in the USA and landlines (but not mobiles) in Australia.

Since your Skype account would be registered with a USA billing address, you would not be subject to any local government-imposed fines or connection fees that may apply to citizens of those countries when they make use of VoIP-like services such as Skype.

 

[McGiord]

EDIT:

The best choice is Skype. 100% recommended.

Also I second signing up for the AT&T roaming international roaming plans, for ~$10 you get reduced prices, one plan to make and another to receive calls.

Avoid roaming charges unless your employer pays them.
Don't use data roaming it will cost you a huge amount of money if you are paying it. Remember to turn it off before landing, double check, I had forgot in the past and there are many data connections behind the scenes that will make significant and annoying AT&T charges, even you are not intentionally doing stuff like checking email or internet browsing. So turn it off to avoid surprises.

Once you have wi-fi you can make calls with Skype for a very cheap price or even "free" of extra charges when you sign in for a calling plan with them, you can also receive voicemails and calls when connected to wi-fi.

I frequently use Skype to call my family and friends in the USA, as well as to another countries, also to make calls to the country that I am visiting so you don't pay hotel or roaming fees.

Skype rules, second to none.

 

[jrm27]

So, if i were in Australia calling the US, I would only need a subscription that would allow mt to call phones in the US? That's pretty sweet!

All calls would need to be placed over Wifi right? So, if there's no wifi where I am at, then Skype can't be used. Correct?

 

[McGiord]

So, if i were in Australia calling the US, I would only need a subscription that would allow mt to call phones in the US? That's pretty sweet!

All calls would need to be placed over Wifi right? So, if there's no wifi where I am at, then Skype can't be used. Correct?

That is all correct.

I think you can do instant messaging/chat when on the data network, but you will paying roaming fees for that data.

Probably there is a hack out there to make it works without wi-fi...

But back to the original point, yes you can use Skype with an US account ot call to any phone number in the US for a flat low fee via wi-fi from your iPhone.