Using cell and data services overseas can be complicated and expensive as one Spokane financial planner recently discovered.
From the Spokesman Review:
Most of the charges in the 32-page Cingular Wireless invoice stem from Baker’s use of a cellular laptop card for business while traveling. Baker said he struggled to get the card to work and had to download files repeatedly, hindering his business. When he returned, his bill showed he used hundreds of thousands of kilobytes of data transfer service at about 2 cents each while roaming overseas.
Baker, who returned from his trip in January, said he spent hours on the phone with Cingular representatives protesting the bill. Though company employees offered a credit, he said, nothing materialized. His latest bill shows a balance of $7,124.
“Right now, I have 10 hours plus on this deal, and I’m not very happy,” he said.
In response to a query by the reporter, Cingular offered Baker a $6,080 credit for the roaming charges. The mix-up started when Baker told Cingular he was going to Germany and asked which plan they recommended. The recommended plan didn’t work in quite the way he’d expected. —MEGHANN MARCO
Cell phone user gets wrong signal [Spokesman Review]
(Photo:Lithoglyphic)
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HA low international rates says the picture.
Sorry to hear bout your trouble man, there aint a whole lot you can do when you’re in a load of shit, cept get some people to help pull you out.
Wow thats horrible. Ive heard horror stories of Service men and women accruing massive charges from using their GSM Phones in Afghanistan But that takes the cake.
a thousand dollar cell phone is still more than I’ve paid for an entire year of family plan service!
he really should’ve just bought a new sim card/wireless card while abroad, it still would’ve been cheaper than $1000
Sounds like I need to buy stock in Cingular!!! They know the easiest way to make money, Steal it!!!!!
please everyone, do a little research before going abroad & save yourself big money:
-cingular’s international roaming service is a joke. in addition to per minute costs, there can be forwarding fees for transferring calls thru the proper channels.
-a simple google search will provide listings of free wifi all over europe. use 802.11 over cell – it’s cheaper & faster. worried about security? use a vpn, or if your company doesn’t have one, try a service like hotspotvpn ($8.88/mo.): http://www.hotspotvpn.com/
-unlock your gsm phone before going abroad. cingular’s a pain about this, but they will do it. just keep leaning on them. make up some kind of emergency if you have to. use prepaid gsm chips in the country you are in (europeans only pay for OUTBOUND calls, all INCOMING are free…sometimes there is a fee to connect int’l calls, but it is a single fee, not charged per minute). the chips are rechargeable, & can be refilled with a credit card.
-blackberry users beware: if you plan on checking email abroad & don’t answer those incoming phone calls, you’re still paying for them. in fact, you pay for them twice – once to get to your phone, & then again to get transferred back to the u.s. voicemail service. i could not get a clear answer on whether or not forwarding calls would result in the same fees, or if it would be a workaround.
& just for kicks, i’ll throw in this last one: call your hotels to see if they keep hairdryers on hand, or buy one while you’re in europe. converting that $30 conair for use abroad will set you back $40-$50.
If cingular was smart, they would recommend switching to tmobile.
Tmobile is a gsm provider just like cingular, except, tmobile is the LARGEST wireless provider in the world. You were basically charged for using TMobile’s backbone and infrastructure.
Verizon is to the USA as Tmobile is to Germany, meaning, they provides all the wired and wireless services in germany.
Also, they are strongy dominant in the USA.
Here is a list of countries and regions they are present in:
Germany
U.K.
Austria
Czech Republic
Netherlands
Slovakia
Croatia
Poland
Hungary
Macedonia
Montenegro
U.S.
Also, return the data card and cancel your plan with cingular. The data card is not worth anything because its locked to cingular’s sim card and they are VERY poor about unlocking the card as they are with phones, even if your contract is up, so your basically stuck with a heap of junk.
Get yourself an unlocked GSM Quad Band 3G/UMTS data card. There are a bunch on froogle and ebay.
The beauty -> Pop in your cingular sim, and it works, pop in your tmobile sim, and it works, so your hardware is not bound to one provider. This is the same reason that it is better to buy an unlocked phone.
Unlocked and unbranded phones run faster, and have a lot less problems, because for a provider to actually brand a phone, they have to rewrite the operating system, of which many do poorly.
Phones are specifically locked because they are NOT your property, ever, but tmobile’s rates pay for the phone after the contract is up, so they will unlock it, but your phone is still branded. Worried about loosing or breaking your phone, there are insurance ubrella policies for that too.
Also, you can get a cheaper plan if you do your homework, because your no longer leasing/leasing-to-own your phone.
Also, if you have a good laptop, like the IBM Z6* or T6* line, then you can actually buy an internal data kit so you cant break off anything thats sticking out, i believe Sierra Wireless makes them, and the MC8775 and MC8780 are the device name, but you will have to do extra research on that. Also, the tmobil’s data plans may,or may-not include their wifi hotspots, and also, Im not sure what data plan would be suitable for you, since some of these data cards also suppor voice access, meaning if the laptop has a microphone, then you can just call them like that, or use dialup on non-digital networks. Then again, you can just can a data/voice plan, and clone you sim card so you can carry it in your phone and your laptop.
As mac-phisto says, definately unlock your phone and rent a SIM card locally. If Cingular won’t unlock your phone, you can find someone who will (my Cingular store actually handed me a flyer for a local cell phone dealer who unlocks phones).
The other advantage of renting a SIM card overseas is that you get a local number for that country.
Last time I went to New Zealand I purchased a SIM card from a local mobile provider (Vodafone) for next to nothing. Local calls and calls to the U.S. were cheap – much cheaper than the $1.00+ per minute Cingular roaming! I still have the SIM card for the next time I go back.
As a student who just returned from traveling through Europe last semester, I found that it’s easier to simply buy a new cell phone abroad then to try and bring your American phone over. I ended up spending 60euro to purchase a new pay-as-you-go cell phone with a SIM card included. With a special deal the company (Meteor) was offering, I got a 10 euro credit each month for the next six months. Those credits took me through my entire three-month stay, even while traveling through and making international calls from Germany and the UK. At the end of my semester I literally gave my phone away to someone walking by on the street. I got to feel like a good samaritan and I didn’t have to hassle with annoying american corperations.
@shdwsclan:
I disagree with your statement that phones are not your property, ever. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe it’s a violation of your contract to unlock your phone. I understand that they heavily subsidize the phone purchase price in return for your business, but isn’t that what 1 and 2 year contracts are for? Oh right, they want to be able to screw you on roaming charges when you travel too.
Locking GSM phones is so obnoxious, because the GSM technology was DESIGNED to allow this type of flexibility. U.S. mobile phone companies go out of their way to hobble a great technology. Seriously, what good is a SIM card in a locked phone? They may as well store all your account data on the phone itself!
It reminds me of the way cable companies are trying to kill another great technology (Cablecards) because they allow interoperability and consumer choice.
@DCKiwi: It is perfectly legal to unlock your phone, and it is your property. The poster you responded to is outright wrong on that.
You paid money for it, they gave it to you, it is yours.
I love how there is a T-Mobile ad conveniently placed right below this Cingular article. Wonderful product placement! I am surely going to cancel my Cingular account and switch over to T-Mobile!
Where did the T-mobile ad go? I don’t get credit for this? You don’t post my comment about it? Come on now fellas. Don’t say it wasn’t placed there for a reason. What did T-Mobile pay to have the ad there? That was prime positioning. You better put it back up before the tear up the check!
That product placement kind of goes against the theme of this site, doesn’t it?
@shdwsclan: Switching to T-Mobile doesn’t help – you still get charged int’l roaming. T-Mobile doesn’t care that you’re on a Telekom tower, all that matters is that you are a US account and you are not in the US.
In fact, it becomes all the more frustrating when you are, for instance, in Berlin of all places, on the T-Mobile network, and still getting charged a roaming fee.
Oh, and even if you have Total Internet that includes unlimited hot spot access, you still have to pay a “roaming fee” to use int’l hot spots! You know, with calling they can use int’l tariffs as an excuse for why they still have to charge you a roaming fee. But to go into a cafe and use the local ISP? That’s a “we’re charging you extra because we can” situation.
The truth is that international wireless is absurdly overpriced, and has gotten more expensive as many providers have phased out int’l plans where you can pay upfront for int’l minutes.
The thing to do, as mentioned a couple of times above, is to get a local prepaid SIM card for your unlocked phone (I bought a not-fancy Ericsson world phone on eBay for about $20 including shipping, since I use a CDMA carrier stateside.) I know that in Italy you’re LEGALLY required to have a codice fiscale (Italian equivalent of SSN) to buy an Italian SIM, but there are LOTS of phone shop vendors who can generate a codice fiscale that works, sell you a SIM and you can buy prepaid minutes for it anywhere prepaid cards for that phone provider are sold. I’m pretty sure you can make that process work in whichever European country you find yourself, I can only speak from experience about Italy.
The shortcoming for some people is that this doesn’t get you your US inbound number, but if that is particularly important to you, you’re either using it for business (so it’s deductible or you can expense it to your employer) or you have an irrational need to be in contact (see the recent article about some guy’s girlfriend dumping him when the Crackberries were broken because he didn’t respond quickly enough to her email.) If you just want a phone to call cabs (almost essential in Italy) and for other conveniences while traveling, it works great.
I requested for Cingular to send me the unlock code for my Cingular 3125 phone and had no issues whatsoever. The rep. on the phone told me that it would take 7-10 business days for me to receive an email with instructions for unlocking the phone, along with the unlock code. Two days later, I have the email. This has been the case for 8 other people here at the company I work for.
Cingular may hesitate if you have been a customer less than 90 days or so, but if you have been with them longer, they have no issue giving you the code. By federal law, they are required to.
As always, if you have issues with the person you are speaking to, request someone else (preferably higher up in the ranks.)
@bendsley:
“they have no issue giving you the (unlock) code. By federal law, they are required to.”
Not to be a skeptic (and I really hope you’re right) but is that really a federal law? If so, can anyone find the specific statute? I plan to keep it handy in the future so I can wave it in front of reluctant Cingular reps!
@bendsley:
They SENT you the unlock code! That is a direct violation of their company policy. If thats the case Im most impressed because that code works for every single 3125 ever made.
All GSM providers that use these subsidy unlock codes the same policy. You pay for it (or they just give it too you free of charge) then you are forced to type it in on the phone right then and there. (they walk you through it).
FYI, if you play with the puk code enough (which is the pin unlock code) or the subsidy code the phone will lock (ie no longer work) after (depending on model) 3-5 tries.
If they did that then.. well cool beans for you
Sorry for the dub.
No, they are not required to provide the subsidy unlock code. They are allowed to charge you for this service if they wish. I can personally promise you that fact.
Even though it should not even exist in the first place.
@DCKiwi:
Replying to myself
I could not find any references to federal law requiring carriers to unlock phones. I did find this article about a new ruling by the U.S. Copyright Office that states that unlocking your phone is not illegal (i.e. not a copyright infringement). It does NOT require the carrier to unlock the phone for you, however.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/293875_unlock28.html
Well voice roaming, yes…but data roam…..that changes…
I just stumbled on the following article
http://networks.silicon.com/mobile/0,39024665,39165777,00….
So going with tmobil is still the better option, since their data rates are getting slashed.
Tmobil is still tmobil
And some carriers have all you can eat roaming
Even though you may be a US customer, you really dont have a traditional phone number with a pc datacard plan.
Yes, you will get screwed with the unlimited data plan for US which is only for the US and nothing but the US, so if you roam outside, you get killed with rates, but there are other plans i believe that are more economical.
I dont use anything like that, since i just run some shady apps like wep cracker and nmap to pose as other people to get onto wifi networks as them.
Wifi should be free, if its public.
@DCKiwi:
In the UK, there is law that requires the GSM/GAIT devices that are owned by the customer (ie not “rentals”) must be provided the unblocking code.
You are however correct. There is no law stating that you cannot unlock the phone yourself. however Puks and Subsidy codes are closely guarded. (most providers) won’t even give them out for newer phones. However there are third party companies that will unlock the phone for you. But not give you the number. Those numbers are worth quiet a pretty penny for newer model phones.
@shdwsclan:
Not to start a flame war, but shdwsclan you are an idiot.
You use WEP cracking tools to gain access to private wireless access points, and then argue that ‘Wifi should be free if it’s public’. How do you define a private access point? Access points with WEP encryption enabled are clearly not intended to be public. It’s kind of hard to prevent the signal from a ‘private’ access point leaking out to public places.
You’re not a bad person, just ‘shady’ as you yourself acknowledge.
I worked for Cingular for six months. I took a lot of calls.
And I remember Mr. Baker.
I particularly remember Mr. Baker because the $6,080 credit was the largest one I ever offered a customer.
Mr. Baker declined that credit, because I explained to him that if he accepted, we wouldn’t be able to offer any other credits for the same issue again.
Mr. Baker called before his trip, and we did put him on the incorrect plan. That, however, was corrected – we even gave him credit for the inconvenience. IMO, that was the right thing to do – we screwed up, we fixed it and credited the account.
However, the bill in question was not a screw-up on our part. It took forty-five minutes of Mr. Baker calling me all sorts of nasty names to extract the REAL issue he was calling about.
Mr. Baker was using a laptop provided by his employer while overseas on business. Mr. Baker’s employer, upon his return, pulled his internet history. Mr. Baker’s employer, consequently, refused to reimburse him for all of his overseas data usage, citing their internet and e-mail abuse policy. Apparently, Mr. Baker’s employer frowned on his taste in internet porn on company time.
I reviewed his account with my supervisor and my supervisor’s supervisor. We determined that it was in our best interest to offer Mr. Baker a $6,080 credit to retain his business – he was a loyal customer, high revenue, with excellent payment history. I explained to Mr. Baker that we could offer to meet him partway on his data usage, because he was such a good customer.
The reason Mr. Baker’s account was not credited is simple – he declined the credit, and hung up on me after a few choice words about my parentage and intelligence. I noted his account thoroughly.
Big corporations, generally speaking, are smart enough to know that screwing their customers means no customers. And there’s ALWAYS two sides to any story.
This is the exact reason I left Cingular. The constant overcharges, then the credit they gave, then took back, resulting in 3 days without phone service, and the fact they misbilled me every month.
T-mobile roaming in Europe (for U.S. customers) is $0.015 KB and from what I can tell that’s the sum of upload and download. Or at least that was the case last Summer when I was there.
Data roaming rates are pretty insane. I’m all for being charged a reasonable rate but just downloading an email message or two can cost you around a dollar.
Still, I researched it ahead of time and was careful and ended up paying about $50.00 in data roaming charges.
Had the same problem from a February trip to Germany. Was sold a .99 cent per minute on calls, unlimited data plan to use there and when I got home had a 1300.00 cell phone bill for 3 weeks of data charges at .02 a kb plus 1.29 per minute on phone calls. Called Cingular and got to talk to 13 different agents who all said the credit amount I was asking for was to high for them and had to go to a supervisor and that they would call within 3 days. This went on for a month and after 43 days of calling every single day got a call from a cingular agent and recieved a one time credit of 778.00 for my data charges. I ate the 1.29 a minute difference for the phone calls.
@mac-phisto: “(europeans only pay for OUTBOUND calls, all INCOMING are free…sometimes there is a fee to connect int’l calls, but it is a single fee, not charged per minute)”
The b*stards. I bet they don’t have to pay to receive letters in the mail either.
@shdwsclan:
Those rate cuts only affect business users and only in the UK.
Wireless in the US is a completely different animal. It’s an industry that has relied on the fact that most Americans don’t pay attention to or care about what is done in the rest of the world to provide stunted, degraded, crippled and artificially overpriced products to the US.
You may still be right that T-Mobile’s int’l romaing is “cheaper” than other US providers. That doesn’t change the fact it’s absurdly expensive and ignores the fact that you may be “roaming” on your own provider’s network.
I’d be placated if they brought back int’l plans that you could add on a per-month basis, but somehow I don’t see that happening. There’s not many world travelers in the US – screw’em.
@palaste: heheh. for real. it will be nice when that trickles over here. nextel/sprint offers a free incoming plan, but it’s horribly priced ($50/mo. for 300 outbound minutes).
@Troy F.: the other thing to remember about the u.s. model is how it’s entirely based on residuals. even the pre-paid plans require users to “subscribe” in the form of periodic re-ups.
The FCC requires that after 3 months, your carrier will provide you with an unlock code for your phone so you can use it with another carrier / service when you insert the SIM. If you are trying to use your Cingular phone with T-Mobile / Vodafone / Telefonica / etc. with a pay-as-you go SIM, get the code from your carrier first. They are required to give it to you.