AT&T bestows international wireless plan on American iPhoners
Takes pity on jet-setters
AT&T has thrown a bone to all those iPhone owners complaining about ridiculously-high international roaming charges.
Today, the big-name wireless provider announced two flat-rate international data plans for American iPhoners. When visiting 29 countries across the globe - including Mexico and Canada as well as parts of Europe and Asia - these US-based Apple lovers can now pay $59.99 a month for 50MB of wireless data access or $24.99 a month for 20MB.
The move follows countless complaints from American iPhoners who've ventured outside the country and returned home to sky-high wireless bills. After a trip to Mexico and a $2000 monthly bill, one character even slapped Apple with a class action lawsuit.
You see, the Jesus phone is setup to automatically poll the network for email messages, and if you're an American roaming outside the country, this can be rather expensive. Yes, you can turn off this perpetual email checker - but only if your handheld status symbol is loaded with Apple's 1.1.1 firmware update.
With AT&T's new data plans, American iPhoners now have the option of leaving data roaming on. Maybe. If you go over those data caps, you'll start paying by the kilobyte.
But AT&T doesn't want any bright ideas from all you Apple lovers living outside the US. You can't purchase these new international plans without paying for a US domestic plan as well. ®
COMMENTS
@ JeffyPooh
$0.05/Kbyte? That's a 25% hike over what it was on a Fido PAYG SIM I was using while out there. Which, apart from a (now plugged) hole in their proxy was also 4 times as expensive as using my Virgin Mobile UK SIM on roaming...
The hole? They weren't accounting usage of HTTP CONNECT sessions over their proxy. Nice while it lasted.
no difference between Apple and Microsoft
They are both run by greedy billionaires, it seems that most Apple fans seem to conveniently forget that.
As for my own position, I use whatever device gets whatever job done.
I own an ipod shiffle simply because it is a small MP3 player and clips to my clothing so that I can listen to my MP3s while working on a task.
I use a Windows based PC because it runs the applications I need.
I have a Sony Ericsson phone because it has the features I want and does it's job well in my opinion.
I have a Xerox flat panel monitor again for the same reason but have a Samsung LCD TV.
I could go on but it's be boring.
I get really fed up of reading posts by people who cant spell (the occasional typo should be allowed) accusing other people of being Microsoft or Apple fanbois (I think you mean fanboys), yes there are the Microsoft and Apple die-hards who should be pitied but if you are an intelligent person why are you wasting your time commenting on these people, make an intelligent comment instead.
Talking of people being stupid...
How about buying a phone that doesn't have a vaguely decent international roaming tariff?
Or as mentioned above, are they fanboys who don't feel complete without the latest bit of kit? Act in haste, repent at leisure..
Zune fanboi alert
"Some serious Apple fanbois here at the Reg
By William..."
William, they need you at the Zune forums pronto, seems they want to get some more close-up shots of your Zune tats.
iPhone Data Roaming
First, the so called deal is very expensive, when taking the bandwidth cap. And the fact that its slow as paint drying. You can be quite easily fooled into exceeding it - a large attachment might download for hours without being obvious. And frankly you might as well buy a monthly Starbucks account as an alternative, if you'r not in hotels or workplaces where Wi-Fi is not available.
The thing to do is to turn the Data Roaming to "off" in the network menu of General Settings. This was the recent addition by Apple, I assume prompted by the many complaints.
