15 Jun
Posted by scottc as AT&T, Communicate, iPhone
If you plan to go abroad this year with your iPhone, you’ll need something other than deep pockets. Many people arrive at their destination, turn on their iPhone, and don’t realize that international data is horribly expensive.
A single received email may cost you as much as $1 to download. Multiply that by 2 weeks and 100 emails and you’ve got yourself one hell of a phone bill when you return.
So, before leaving, call AT&T and have them add the Global iPhone data plan to your account. You’ll get 50MB of data for "just" $59.99 (only in the countries listed).
If you live a busy life and receive a lot of data, you’ll appreciate this example:
100Mb of data transferred on vacation. Without the iPhone data plan, will cost:
$0.195 per KB = $19.50 per MB * 100 = $1950
But WITH the iPhone global data plan:
$0.005 per KB = $5 per MB * 50 (first 50MB are included in the plan) = $250 + $59.99 (for the plan itself) = $309.99
Saves you: $1640.01.
Don’t get me wrong, this is still a massive ripoff, especially since other operators (like T-mobile) offer unlimited international data plans for just $20 (Blackberry only). But if you absolutely insist on carrying your iPhone, it makes sense.
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3 Responses
tivoboy
June 15th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
1This is a good plan to have, but I’ll add that when I did this earlier in the year, ATT didn’t want to remove the plan when we returned. They said, it wasn’t a cafeteria plan (like it sorta has been in the past) and that I was only allowed 1 change ever 12 months. I said bunk, that wasn’t detailed before I turned it on. Supervisor came on, and said “yep, you cannot just turn it on for a month, and then turn it off”. She wanted to charge me a 15$ fee, just to STOP the plan after returning, and then a pro-rated 34$ see it was a pay it forward type of billing. I said BUNK!. So, they took it off and said “we’re marking your account and you won’t be able to add it again for 12 months, without keeping it active going forward” so I said fine.
In the past, 10 years, I have added things like the the europe .79-.99$ calling plans, and then taken them off once I returned without problem, so this might be the new draconian ATT.
When I was in Europe and South America this March and April though, we just used WIFI to connect which was pretty darn ubiquitous and free. It served us well. So, YMMV but maybe check with ATT on the turn-on turn-off stuff before turning on?
bp888
June 15th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
2> If you have a busy life, and receive 150MB of data when on vacation, this would cost $292.50, but with the discount data plan it would be just $64.99 (50MB free + 100MB * $0.005/KB).
Er, run that math by me again?
scottc
June 16th, 2008 at 9:15 am
3bp888: I screwed up. I was off by a factor 100
I’ve corrected the post.
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