iPhone owners traveling abroad will be forced to roam on AT&T and to pay through the nose for data as well as voice calls made over cellular-phone networks.
July 22, 2007 (Press Release) --
Until Apple initiates iPhone service with foreign carriers, which is expected to be a gradual process that will begin in Europe, iPhone owners traveling abroad will be forced to roam on AT&T and to pay through the nose for data as well as voice calls made over cellular-phone networks. They won't be able to buy cheaper service from a local foreign carrier and enable it by simply replacing the phone's AT&T SIM card with the local carrier's.
In addition, it is important to note that, even if you are willing to swallow these huge voice-and-data rates, you must call AT&T (formerly Cingular) before you leave the U.S. with your iPhone (or any AT&T phone) to modify, or "provision," your calling plan so it will even work overseas.
Here are the details. Note that these prices and plans apply to many other phones AT&T sells, not just the iPhone.
To recap the voice-calling situation, AT&T charges very high fees, which can be mitigated a bit by adding a special $5.99 monthly add-on feature, called AT&T World Traveler, to its plans. This voice feature allows you to roam in 190 countries and gives you discounts on calls from 80 countries. For instance, in France, Italy, Germany, and Britain, you pay a still-high 99 cents a minute, compared with an even worse $1.29 without the plan. In Hong Kong or Israel, you pay a whopping $1.99 a minute, instead of an even more outrageous $2.29 or $2.49, respectively, a minute.
For e-mail and the Web, the best bet for iPhone owners is to avoid using cellular networks and employ the phone's Wi-Fi capability, which can cost nothing extra. Try to find a free or reasonably priced Wi-Fi hot spot in which to check e-mail and do Web browsing. You may even be able to make cheap voice calls this way using Internet-based calling services like JaJah (mobile.jajah.com) which, in my domestic tests, worked properly via the iPhone's Web browser.
However, if you need to check e-mail constantly or frequently, you are unlikely to be able to depend solely on the Wi-Fi method. You can rely on AT&T roaming to do this over foreign cellular services, but, as with the voice call situation, it will cost a fortune.
AT&T offers an add-on plan for $24.99 a month, called the "PDA/Smartphone/iPhone International Data Plan." This is on top of the $5.99-a-month voice plan, and is also additive to the $20 a month for unlimited data when in the U.S. that is built into your base plan. But it isn't unlimited. You get 20 megabytes of overseas data use a month and pay a stiff $.005 a kilobyte for all data use above that. Plus, this international-data plan works in only 29 countries. Outside those countries, the cost is an astounding $.0195 a kilobyte, or roughly $20 a megabyte. A single e-mail with a medium-res picture attached could amount to a megabyte.
Author: Walter Mossberg
Source: http://www.azstarnet.com/
In addition, it is important to note that, even if you are willing to swallow these huge voice-and-data rates, you must call AT&T (formerly Cingular) before you leave the U.S. with your iPhone (or any AT&T phone) to modify, or "provision," your calling plan so it will even work overseas.
Here are the details. Note that these prices and plans apply to many other phones AT&T sells, not just the iPhone.
To recap the voice-calling situation, AT&T charges very high fees, which can be mitigated a bit by adding a special $5.99 monthly add-on feature, called AT&T World Traveler, to its plans. This voice feature allows you to roam in 190 countries and gives you discounts on calls from 80 countries. For instance, in France, Italy, Germany, and Britain, you pay a still-high 99 cents a minute, compared with an even worse $1.29 without the plan. In Hong Kong or Israel, you pay a whopping $1.99 a minute, instead of an even more outrageous $2.29 or $2.49, respectively, a minute.
For e-mail and the Web, the best bet for iPhone owners is to avoid using cellular networks and employ the phone's Wi-Fi capability, which can cost nothing extra. Try to find a free or reasonably priced Wi-Fi hot spot in which to check e-mail and do Web browsing. You may even be able to make cheap voice calls this way using Internet-based calling services like JaJah (mobile.jajah.com) which, in my domestic tests, worked properly via the iPhone's Web browser.
However, if you need to check e-mail constantly or frequently, you are unlikely to be able to depend solely on the Wi-Fi method. You can rely on AT&T roaming to do this over foreign cellular services, but, as with the voice call situation, it will cost a fortune.
AT&T offers an add-on plan for $24.99 a month, called the "PDA/Smartphone/iPhone International Data Plan." This is on top of the $5.99-a-month voice plan, and is also additive to the $20 a month for unlimited data when in the U.S. that is built into your base plan. But it isn't unlimited. You get 20 megabytes of overseas data use a month and pay a stiff $.005 a kilobyte for all data use above that. Plus, this international-data plan works in only 29 countries. Outside those countries, the cost is an astounding $.0195 a kilobyte, or roughly $20 a megabyte. A single e-mail with a medium-res picture attached could amount to a megabyte.
Author: Walter Mossberg
Source: http://www.azstarnet.com/
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