iPhone Photo by William Hook
If you’re traveling internationally with your iPhone, BEWARE. It’s not the phone charges that will kill you, it’s the international data roaming rates! While I was recently in Canada on business, I received the following email from AT&T. “Our current data charges based on data use of 475.83 MB since leaving the US are: $7,137.45! This was only after two days of using my iPhone.
I called them to understand what the #$%^$ was going on! Apparently, they charge you $22/MB to use your phone internationally. So to turn on the phone, $22, to check email, $22-$66, etc! My only solution was to accept a $200/month data plan (my phone plan is $125/month by the way), while traveling.
So I had to look into this further. I stopped in at The Source, the Canadian equivalent of Radio Shack, where the local technician knew the scoop. Rogers Telecom has an agreement with AT&T, so I just had to call AT&T, ask them to unlock my phone, then buy a Rogers SIM card the next time I was in Canada, slip out the American AT&T SIM card and voila, LOCAL usage. (Keep your SIM card in a very safe place, as you’ll need to put it back in your iPhone on your return).
So there AT&T, no more $200/month data plans for you!
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