$11,000 in Roaming Charges?

[kevin_standlee]

Adam Savage of MythBusters has announced on his Twitter feed: "AT&T is attempting to charge me 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada."

$11,000! Wow, I was charged US$0.69/minute roaming charges for calls I made from my Verizon phone while in Montreal, but it would take a whole lot of minutes to add up to $11K.

I don't know the details, but I suggest that anyone with a US wireless data plan that includes the ability to connect in Canada check the roaming charges carefully before you fire up the connection there.

Comments

[cmdrsuzdal.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's something like the Verizonmath incident?

[cmdrsuzdal.livejournal.com]

Yup, we just tweeted that he was told "data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb"

Sigh.

He's got a lot of very frustrating conversations ahead of him.

[ashi.livejournal.com]

I was quoted $0.69/minute for Sprint. Data is $0.002 per kilobyte (Hmmm $2 per megabyte, $2000 per gigabyte), but I don't plan on using data there.

[dinogrl.livejournal.com]

He has since clarified the incident:
donttrythisSorry, bit of explanation: device in question wasn't my phone, it was the AT&T usb connect Mercury modem.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

This is why I am not planning on using Text or Internet while in Canada. I don't have a laptop, but am tempted to get one to keep blogging in Canada.

[kproche.livejournal.com]

I'm planning to make a one-month use of the 20M International Roaming Data Global Addon ($25 for 20M) for my iPhone for August. That way I don't have to worry about it.

(I won't use anywhere near 20M of 3G data transfer on the phone, but I won't have to worry about a spike in my bill paying the regular roaming data fees that way)

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

Check the rules on that very carefully. There have been cases in Europe where people have bought such plans and then been stuck with huge bills because the small print says that the price applies to the month in which you are billed, not the month in which the data was used.

[kproche.livejournal.com]

Good point, thanks.

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

I'm am so glad that I have unlimited data from T-mobile. Worldwide. It is almost enough to make me want to get a unlocked iPhone and use my T-mobile SIM to run Skype.

[buddykat.livejournal.com]

T-Mobile Germany is the official iPhone carrier for Germany...

Just sayin' ;-)

Seriously, I'm going to be making phone calls this week to confirm what my plan is and how much roaming might cost me and what my options are. I know T-Mobile will give me the unlock code for my phone so I can buy a Canadian sim if needed.

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

I've been watching data usage on the iPhone very carefully while I have been in France, Australia and New Zealand. (And to be fair, the iPhone does allow you to meter data usage very easily.) What I have found is that as long as I stick to Twitter I'm OK. I get charged maybe $50 for a convention. But I should never, ever, fire up Safari, just in case. My friend Donna got stung for AU$500 for a couple of YouTube videos.

[kallisti.livejournal.com]

That about what Rogers would charge here in Canada...:-)

Local data charges are INSANE here in Canada for wireless carriers.