ATT has two international calling plans. One for calling TO other countries and another for calling FROM other countries. Be careful because most reps don't know the difference and can cause a big problem by putting the wrong one on.

This has happened to me many, many times and is difficult to diagnose because the discounted rates are still terrible but slightly less terrible and you have to compare your bill to rate charts and blah blah blah.

International cell phone use doesn't have to be this hard or expensive.

Would be a lot easier if AT&T could get the iron fist off the device and give out unlock codes. Then you could just pick up a SIM in just about any country and have decent calling rates on a local number.

Just unlock your iphone and get a new sim card in the country = Total cost 50$ plus cheaper rates.

Excellent advice. I just came back from Europe and turned data roaming off. However, AT&T isn't totally to blame. Internet prices in Europe there are INSANE. My London hotel wanted 15 GBP a day for internet and my Rome hotel wanted 25 Euro a day.

Please, if you have to use the internet find an internet cafe. I found one in London that charged 1 GBP an hour and the code lasted for 24 hours.

FTA:
"If you want to go crazy with data, foreign plans start at $25 for 20 megabytes."

That's absurd..20 megabytes is nothing. When I called AT&T to add the international phone portion (which IS reasonable) they asked if I wanted this. I told them, politely, to pound sand.

For those from Canada who use Rogers and are traveling to the States, I was dinged with $1.45 a minute(!!!) roaming charge for voice, and $3/MB data charges.

Even though I turned off the data roaming (it was actually turned off automatically by Rogers), what little data usage I had ended up costing...more than I naively assumed it would.

@snowmoon: Blame Apple for that. there is no listed procedure in any of AT&T's documentation on how to unlock an iphone. AAAAALL the other phones, yes.

The $25 for 20 megabytes is cheap, considering if you DON'T get a plan, its $20 PER MEGABYTE.

@ZeGoggles: On an iphone, yes 20 megabytes is nothing. But if you're out of the country and you know you're on a 20 mb limit, casually checking your email won't put you over that. Browsing google and watching youtube, yes.
I have 5mb a month and check my email on a fairly regular basis - once a week or so on my phone - and never exceed the 5mb.
And again, its better then paying $20 per megabyte.

Oh goody. I have lots of good advice, since I had to call AT&T about international calling recently!

If you're traveling for business, your company should cover the cost of the phone calls. Speak to someone about this before you leave; don't wait until you come back, get your bill, then show it to the finance people. They'll have a cow if they didn't know beforehand this was happening. Make sure to track your minutes as you go if your company has a limit on expenses.

If you're going to get data, ask about which countries are blacked out from the coverage area. If you have an international data plan and still use data in countries not on the coverage map, you will get charged outside of your allotted data usage beccause those areas are not covered by AT&T per their international data plan.

Phone calls overseas are expensive, and get more expensive depending on location as well as access. Calls from some countries are more expensive than calls from others. You can still make phone calls without a plan, but you will be paying roughly 75 cents more per minute without the plan. That $5 is totally worth it.

Disable voicemail if you can. People who call and leave voicemail still cost you minutes and money.

I wussed out and I just set my phone to "Airplane Mode", then enabled "Wifi", which is possible since iPhone 2.0 or so. Basically, turned it into an iPod Touch for a couple weeks while I was traveling through Asia.

@futuresuperbowlMVPJayCutler: I know that business care has a specific international department that's supposed to cut down on this error. If anything, you can always check online (or call back before you leave) to ensure you're on the right plan.

@Oranges w/ Cheese is gonna play ROCKBAND!: This is an AT&T thing. Most of the other countries where the iPhone is for sale unlock codes are granted by the carrier ( the phones are also available factory unlocked as well ).

@ludwigk: Also an excellent suggestion!

@ludwigk: You didn't get dinged for overseas charges of any kind, right? That's pretty good in case you still want your music player/organizer/everything else, without the phone and the data. A lot of people I know still prefer calling cards because it's cheaper.

@pecan 3.14159265:

Disable voicemail if you can. People who call and leave voicemail still cost you minutes and money.

Very very true! If someone calls your phone and it gets forwarded to voicemail (i.e. sent back to vm servers in the states) it will cost you 1 minute of airtime wherever you are. In some countries, thats up to $2.

Best practice: keep your phone off until you know someone will be calling you (pre-arrange times) or until you need to use it. In most cases you'll have it for emergencies anyway as other forms of communication will be available.

Also: Iphones can actually be put on a plan without Visual Voicemail features, if you're worried about the extra data charges but still want your voicemail to work while abroad. As always, calling your voicemail is not a mobile to mobile call either, which is annoying, but that means it will always cost you airtime.

@pecan 3.14159265: If it was in wifi mode and airplane mode the whole time, doubtful it even reached out to any of the towers. AT&T probably didn't even know they were out of the country in that case.

@snowmoon: That doesn't prove it's AT&T's fault. Many EU countries have laws that *require* carriers to provide unlock codes.

Honestly? If it were me I'd just pick up a $20 unlocked GSM phone and buy a local prepaid SIM card wherever I'm going. Then you get a local number, reasonable rates, and a cap on how much you can spend.

Something I read a while back is that "airplane mode" on the iPhone is not mandated by the FAA to be okay. When you're on a plane, and the pilot and flight attendants want you to turn off your electronic devices, don't say "that's cool, it's in airplane mode" - airplane mode is not necessarily FAA approved.

On Apple's website it says: If you turn on airplane mode, the wireless features of iPhone are disabled, and if allowed by the aircraft operator and applicable laws and regulations, you can continue to use the non-wireless features after takeoff.

The emphasis is mine. So if you fight the flight attendants on this, you'll probably lose because Apple itself makes no claims that the FAA approves of airplane mode, and the FAA doesn't have a decision on it.

@snowmoon: Actually, the unlock codes are generated by the manufacturer, the carrier how is the one to request the code from them, they will not accept requests from users.

ATT also has a policy, regardless of the phone, not to give out unlock codes. Whether or not you have completed the terms of your contract, they will absolutely refuse... and I despise them for that.

Orrrrr you can jailbreak that badboy, apply redsn0w, and buy a local SIM card. Problem solved.

@esd2020: What are the rates for a phone number originating from Europe to dial out to the US or Canada?

And this is why I jailbroke and unlocked my iphone...

I spent 3 weeks in South Africa, picked up a pre paid sime card, and spend R300 or something (about $30 USD) for 500 megs of data, and I cannot remember what I paid in minutes, but it was peanuts (atleast when your spending USD).

What annoys me the most about the data rates, is that unlike phone calls, which when you are roaming internationally, are still routed through your home carrier (that includes voicemail). When using data, its routed out straight across whomever you are roaming on's network backbone, there is very little additional cost, even if you were routed back to the US and then to wherever you are again, its data.

That is why I told all my friends and family to email me while I was in South Africa, rather then call or SMS, data is data, and its cheap.

The lawsuits need to move forward about carrier locks on phones, I have no plans to leave ATT, regardless of how much I despise them since they offer the best coverage in my area and they are not Verizon, who I despise more then ATT.

Text messages are really expensive overseas (about 50 cents a message), and are not covered by your existing text plan, so beware. It's a slippery slope to text a few times and suddenly, you're paying $50 in text messages.

@ZeGoggles: I was in London in '07 in Earl's Court and T-Mobile charged me 20 GBP for 24 hours. Near my hotel I found an internet cafe that charge 1 GBP for 24 hours.

@esd2020: That's what I have. I have a pre-paid T-Mobile Motorola and it is the best cell phone that I have ever had.

For Europe, I can buy 800 minutes from AT&T for $34.00 and put them on my calling card and I leave my cell phone HOME!.

If I am on vacay, that means a vacay from my laptop and phone and YOU!

@jvanbrecht: Not true not true. I gave out plenty. My co workers gave out plenty. As long as it sounded like you were genuine and you didn't tell us straight up "oh yeah I wanna go to verizon" we'd pretty much tell you.

@pecan 3.14159265: Yar. For AT&T, incoming texts are covered in any plan you may have but outgoing are 50cents and $1.30 for MMS. So watch it!
YMMV with other carriers.

@pecan 3.14159265: I was on a plane recently, and a lady was on the phone (the flight attendants weren't watching till they sat down in the jump seats) quite literally until we were *on the runway.* Then she just put it in her purse. Didn't even turn the damn thing off. LOL. I just thought it was funny when it rang as we were making liftoff.

I have an 02 quad band that I use when I'm overseas. Just pop in a SMART or GLOBE prepaid sim card and I'm good to hook.

Wait for the 3.1 Jailbreak and carrier unlock, and then buy a local simcard.

soooo would using the TomTom app for the UK reigion be considered part of the international data plan?..

@PixelProphet: meaning taking my US phone to the UK and using the UK TomTom.

@snowmoon: It is such an easy process to unlcok the iPhone I don't know why more people don't do it...

Regarding "oh yeah I wanna go to verizon", since Verizon and AT&T use different (incompatible) technology (CDMA and GSM respectively) that excuse wouldn't get them any where anyways. There aren't many phones on the market that support both CDMA and GSM.

But regardless why does a user have to give a reason to get their phone unlocked? Especially once they have finished their contract, they have fulfilled their obligations to the carrier, the phone should be theirs to do what ever they please with.

Locking phones is 100% about being anti-competitive. I'm honestly surprised it has been outlawed yet....

@ludwigk: This is what I did last week in Mexico and plan on doing this week in India. No roaming, but I can still listen to tunes and take photos!

The other thing is how amazingly long the battery lasts!

@jvanbrecht: Not true about the unlocking. AT&T will unlock anything the phone manufacturer provides a code for, provided you've had the phone for at least 6 months I think it was, and don't have an outstanding balance.

I gave out plenty of codes for people who asked.

@jvanbrecht: AT&T does give out unlock codes to all other phones if you know how to ask, I know plenty of people that have traveled and were able to secure unlock codes for free from AT&T CS.

Most recently a friend got his BB unlocked while he was still under contract for a trip to Europe.

[www.noeman.org]

For anyone using an iPhone in Europe do a search for "how to cheaply use an iPhone in Europe." The basics are that you'll void your warranty, but your should get your iPhone unlocked, then use a prepaid sims card from a European provider. And doesn't the iPhone use wi-fi as well? There's been mention of a Skype app for the iPhone. Use that when you're able.

Check out [ask.metafilter.com]

or [wtop.com]

In the end I'd say that iPhone usage might just be a bad idea in Europe. Why not use a netbook and prepaid European phone? Might be cheaper in the long run.

what you could do is jailbreak and unlock the iphone. Then get a prepaid sim card in the country you are in. Saves you a ton instead of paying ATT expensive international plan.

@Oranges w/ Cheese eats her veggies: They are getting with the times. On a recent Airtran flight, they were explicit about "Airplane Mode" not counting as "off" on takeoff and landing, and when aloft, acknowledged they could be turned back on in Airplane Mode, if applicable.

@ZeGoggles: I got a Switzerland-only temporary plan from AT&T for a recent trip (cheaper than Europe-wide and we weren't country-hopping this time). The thing that got me, but luckily only a little, is how easy it is in Europe to edge into another country's signal, and thus be unknowingly roaming outside of your special rate country. In Switzerland, the other end of a ski lift or a train route can take you in or near another country temporarily with no real notice. I got dinged for a lot of data in Lichtenstein, looking up train schedules, and never visited there!) The trick is to know which carriers operate in your country (Swisscom and Orange in that country, for example) and be sure you are always on one of them.

@ludwigk: I have done this in Europe, Africa and Mexico. You can surf the internet to look for places, maps and update your twitter/facebook. Since my husband was there for business (work pays for his phone), he would leave me notes and updates where to meet and what time in my twitter account. It worked just fine.

what should I do? I have an Iphone and the contract is up in 8/10. I might be moving overseas maybe around 1/10 or 2/10.
Should I:
1. unlock Iphone via the Dev and buy a new sim card, keep paying for bill.
2. ask ATT to unlock my phone and cancel my contract (is this posible).
3. buy an international plan.

I would be living mostly overseas but I would came back to the US to visit several times until the contract is up.

@Kiamat: I love the sentiment, but you'll want to use UltraSn0w now -- and if you already upgraded to the 3.1 OS, you're out of luck. Google Dev-Team iPhone...

@ludwigk: Excellent, I think this is what I will do while I'm in China.

@ludwigk: We're leaving on a cruise Thursday, and I plan to just keep it in Airplane mode as well. I don't really need the data or to make phone calls. I'll be on vacation!

@tackhouse1: I agree -- did an "unofficial" unlock on mine. Took all of 2 minutes, with no calls to a CSR, and no hassle whatsoever. I'm happily on T-Mobile.

On top of that, I always get a kick of people who say the iPhone would be "better on Verizon." Little do those folks realize that Verizon cripples their network devices far more than any GSM carrier can do.

@ludwigk: Prepaid GSM SIMs are the only way to go when traveling abroad. There's really no good reason not to use one, especially with obscene international charges from AT&T.

@pecan 3.14159265: When my husband and I went on our honeymoon to Jamaica we turned our iphones to "Airplane" mode. This way none of the email could be pushed, no text messages could come through, and applications could use the data in the background. When we wanted to check our messages we just turned it back to regular mode, sent a text to our family saying hi and everything is great, then back on to airplane mode it went.