[Pete Paxton]

Now please keep in mind that I virtually never travel outside the country. While I was on vacation last week in Belize and Mexico I found that I received a data signal from AT&T. Please understand that I am not griping about my naiveness to roaming charges. That is my responsibility. When I got my latest bill my roaming data charges are $125! I barely even surfed. I checked a couple of emails and some baseball scores for my son. What do all of you think? Doesn't it seem that roaming charges are a tad bit expensive? Did it really cost AT&T that much for the little time I surfed? Any of you out there like me and got surprised by a mobile bill with roaming charges?

[Pete Paxton]

Now please keep in mind that I virtually never travel outside the country. While I was on vacation last week in Belize and Mexico I found that I received a data signal from AT&T. Please understand that I am not griping about my naiveness to roaming charges. That is my responsibility. When I got my latest bill my roaming data charges are $125! I barely even surfed. I checked a couple of emails and some baseball scores for my son. What do all of you think? Doesn't it seem that roaming charges are a tad bit expensive? Did it really cost AT&T that much for the little time I surfed? Any of you out there like me and got surprised by a mobile bill with roaming charges?

[Jason Dunn]

Yeah, roaming charges can be very brutal...my rates with Fido are $50 per MB. Because of that, when I travel I turn off my data connection and switch to SMS messages...which I still think cost me like $1/message.

Of course, you iPhone users are infamous for getting huge roaming bills.

[tnels!]

I suggest switching to Sprint. $15/mo gets me unlimited data access and I have yet to see a roaming message or charge. HTC Diamonds look like better devices than iPhones anyway!

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by tnels!

I suggest switching to Sprint. $15/mo gets me unlimited data access and I have yet to see a roaming message or charge.

But Sprint doesn't work in non-CDMA areas, so this is a moot point. Pete is referring to when he left the US.

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

Of course, you iPhone users are infamous for getting huge roaming bills.

Well, gotta credit the iPhone for finally shining a mass-media light on Rogers' crazy data pricing. Not that it's helping, yet. I don't quite understand why Rogers and other Canadian wireless operators charge so much more than their US counterparts. Limited competition? Sure, but we have limited competition too...

--janak

[ScottC]

It's an expensive lesson to learn.

Next time, add an international roaming package from your operator (though this isn't always available for every country). It never ceases to surprise me how many people fail to realize how expensive data roaming can be.

That $125 equals just 19Mb transferred, which is a couple of emails and some rich content websites. Next time disable images and other heavy content before downloading, it'll save you, but not much.

Just be happy it wasn't worse. I know people who have gone to China for 2 weeks and got a text message from AT&T telling them they had exceeded the $3500 spending limit on their mobile account.

And yes; $0.0195/KB is an insane price for roaming. Sadly, none of the iPhone or other global roaming packages for data apply to Belize.

[paschott]

I got docked with a huge roaming bill one time when my company neglected to tell me that I'd been switched to a limited area phone plan from the prior one which was nationwide. The company eventually paid for it because they hadn't told anyone we'd been switched, but it went rounds a couple of times. I can't imagine that we saved all that much money by doing that, but I was creful to check what plan I was on next time I went on a trip.

At least now I control my own plan. I get an allowance for the plan where before I just got whatever the company chose.

[Fritzly]

Being someone who spend at least 4 months a year traveling through Europe I handle roaming charges as follows:

I never buy a crippled Sim-lock phone

I only use GSM phones

I buy prepaid sim for every Country I go

Doing this I do not know what roaming charges are.

[kerrins]

I know of someone here at work that had their exchange activesync turned on and went to Europe. Their bill was a couple thousand dollars. I find it rather irritating that AT&T doesn't have anything that helps with voice or data plans when travelling. Even the voice plan, changes the price from about $1.29 per minute to $0.99 per minute...That's not much of a change even when I have time to plan in advance. I'm sure that people travelling are willing to shell out an extra $50 or even $100 bucks for a vacation out of the country but to hit someone with a $1,000 bill is totally unfair.

[ianl]

The size of these charges depends on which country you are actually roaming in as well as any "plan" you may be on.

1) avoid SIM-locked devices (a very restrictive, repulsive marketing idea) since then you have to accept whatever costs the carrier imposes

2) check roaming rates before you leave for each country you intend to visit

As an example, in Europe using the Internet for bits and pieces over 2 weeks cost me about AUD$20. Using much less bandwidth in NZ for 3 days cost me AUD$80; using miniscule amounts in the Phillipines cost AUD$130 for 3 days.