(Updated exact costs)
Last week, while traveling internationally (French West Indies) I wrote a couple of posts and thought it would be good to document my all findings in one post.
The basic problem with roaming is how to minimize what I consider to be the outrageous costs and still stay connected. I have used pay as you go SIM cards in Europe but the last time there I found the cost to be quite high (the Dollar value did not help) but in most circumstances it is still cheaper than paying roaming rates. To use a foreign SIM card, you need an unlocked phone, so with a locked iPhone 3G, the first step is to attempt to get it unlocked.
I called AT&T before I left to see if I could get my IPhone unlocked (don't laugh, I thought I would give it a try).
AT&T customers in good standing who are traveling internationally can get their AT&T supplied phones SIM unlocked. At first I don't think the representative realized I had an iPhone. He took my IMIE and entered it into the system. It got rejected, at that point he asked if I owned an AT&T phone, I replied I owned an iPhone. He told me that they did not have the unlock codes for the iPhone and I would need to contact Apple. And of course Apple won't give you the unlock code since they say they have a contractual obligation to AT&T (no word on exactly what that is). I guess I have to wait until July 2010 to get it officially unlocked, but nobody is quite sure how Apple will handle it. So for now there seems to only be two options for the iPhone 3G, pay the exhorbitant cell roaming charges or buy a SIM card adapter which fakes the phone into thinking you are using an AT&T approved SIM card. There several web sites which sell these adapters for $30 - $50, but I have not tested them and obviously they are not approved by AT&T or Apple.
The only option left (other than buying a SIM card adapter) is to activate AT&T international roaming. You need to be a customer in good standing for 90 days. I just made it since I bought the iPhone in mid July. AT&T in comparison to T-Mobile does have international roaming plans to ease the costs, although their per minute rates are slightly cheaper.
For voice AT&T has Affordable World Packages which reduces the per minute rate. For the French West Indies the $5.99 per month World Traveler option would reduce the per minute rate from $2.49 to $2.29. This is about an 8% savings and not worth it since $2.29 is still pricey, so I am passing on this option.
On the data side, the international data packages offered for the iPhone are much more advantageous (you need to check that the country you are traveling to is part of this program). I signed up for the 20MB plan for $24.99 per month. The only two quirks you need to watch out for is that they pro rate the quantity of data and rate based on your billing date. The other is that you must keep the plan on your account until the data charges show up. This could take 1 or 2 billing cycles according to customer service. I am not sure how legal it is, although I was told this by 2 reps. My trip crosses two billing periods. I signed in the middle of my current billing period which ends today, giving me 10MB. Tomorrow a new period starts giving me a fresh 20MB. AT&T reps do a good job of reminding you to reset your data counter under general settings/usage and turn off push email. As of right now I have used 9.4MB so I am glad the new cycle starts tomorrow. I am also using the hotel's weak WiFi signal which works ok as long as I am outside on the porch. It does not take a lot of surfing or email to use many MBs of data.
Now my only issue is how to handle voice calls. Even if you reject an incoming call while roaming you get charged for the inbound call and the oubound connection back to the voicemail system. In the French West Indies @ $2.49 a minute, that gets expensive quickly. The solution is to use visual voicemail. You forward the phone to voicemail (AT&T uses different voicemail systems across the country. To find your voicemail number you should forward to dial *#62# send) and all calls are directed there automatically without using the roaming cellular system. The voicemail is then transfered via the cellular data network using your purchased international data package (not WiFi) to your phone. You can then listen to your voicemails, respond by email or use a land line and a calling card to return the call (I purchased a 10 Euro calling card which provided 500 minutes of talk time back to the US). I had forgotten to forward my phone before I left, but was pleasantly surprised that it worked when I arrived in the French West Indies, but to be sure you should remember to forward before you leave the US. I went to settings/phones/call forwarding flipped it to on and entered the number I retrieved from using *#62# send command.
The call forwarding screen, even when the function is off it remembers the last number you forwarded to.
Once you arrive at your destination, a great feature AT&T provides is a text message telling you that you are on a provider which supports your data plan.
The international data roaming welcome SMS.
As mentioned in the SMS, it is important to track your usage, so before you leave or right after you arrive. Make sure that you reset your usage statistics (settings/general/usage Reset Statistics at bottom of screen), and if you use push email, turn it off (general/Fetch New Data set Push to off and Fetch to Manual).
This is a screen shot of the usage screen before I returned. I was checking my stats regularly, but at the end of my billing cycle on November 4th I forgot to reset I knew I was in bounds of the 10 MB and from a total of 30MB (10 from previous cycle + 20 of current cycle) I figured I was ok.
When I got back I got a chance to check my previous cycles bill and the data charges had already shown up (no need to wait 1 to 2 billing cycles).
From the 10MB I was allocated in my last cycle, I exceeded by 193KB which cost me a $.45 additional to the prorated monthly charge of $12.50.
On my current usage, I noticed the acds.voicemail data types which refers to Visual Voicemail. I found that they range from 10KB to 200KB. I don't know how that relates to individual voicemails.
It looks like in the end I exceeded my 20MB by 2.99MB in my current cycle which at .005KB cost me an additional $15.34. So my total roaming phone costs will end up being:
- October partial international roaming plan (10MB) $12.50
- October overage (193KB) $ 0.45
- November international roaming plan (20MB) $24.95
- November overage (2.99MB) $15.34
- Calling card (500 min) $12.70 (10 euro @ $1.27)
Total $65.94
The cost runs $9.42 per day which is not bad to stay relatively well connected internationally. So even though this is not an ideal situation from a voice stand point, it works. It is important to note that you must keep the data roaming package option on for a full cycle to receive the full 20MB credit. On the last day of my November cycle (ends in early December), I validated that the International data details posted on my account (via the web site) and I called 611 to have them turn off the International Data Roaming option (I could have used the web site to do this but I wanted to make sure that turning off the option on the last day of the cycle would still count as a full cycle). AT&T just posted my bill with the actual cost of my 2.99MB overage. I am very impressed on how well this worked and will use this method on future International trips. Even thought the phone is locked, it really did not hobble my using it for data and from my previous local month to month SIM card purchase in Europe, I would have to say that the costs are pretty much comparable. The only downside is that if you have some local friends, having a local phone number makes it easier to communicate. AT&T needs to come up with a reasonably priced International voice option and life would be close to perfect.
My International Roaming Experience – Today’s Cruise Ship = Connected for a Price
I have taken 2 cruises in the last 3 years, one to Alaska and this recent one in the Mediterranean. The cruise in Alaska was on Holland America, a cruise line owned by Carnival Corp. and this recent cruise was on Regent Seven Seas owned by the Apollo Group. Both cruise ships had internet and cell phone service. Both services are offered via a satellite link provided by SeaMobile, although the cellular service (Cellular@Sea) is managed by a subsidiary called Wireless Maritime Services which is joint venture with AT&T Mobility.
The cellular functionality on Regent's Seven Seas Navigator provided GSM/GPRS and CDMA/1XRTT voice/data services. As I remember it the Holland America ship only had GSM service, but by now it probably has been upgraded to handle CDMA traffic as well. The ship's cell site only operates when the ship is out of range of local cellular service. It is a roaming service where your cellular carrier bills you for all voice and data. The costs seem to be fixed across all US carriers at $2.49 per minute for voice calls, $.50 to send an SMS, $1.30 to send an MMS, and $.0195 per KB for data. The fact that all carriers are charging the same seems like price collusion but who am I to say. The Bottom line it is expensive, but much cheaper than using the wired phone in the cabin at $6.95 per minute. Also carriers offer data plans which can be very beneficial for heavy email users, Verizon offers a global unlimited email plan for $69.99 per month and includes cruise ships. AT&T International Data plans do not include cruise ships which is a real shame. I talked to both AT&T and Verizon customer service before I left. They gave me detailed information, provided me with alternatives and more than once warned me about the costs. Given the articles that have surfaced about surprise bills (especially with the iPhone); it is clear that carriers are going out of their way to educate consumers. The catch you have to call them. Even if you think you understand it all, I strongly urge everyone to call their carriers before leaving on trip abroad. AT&T emailed me an FAQ about the iPhone, and Verizon emailed a detailed rate chart with the list of countries I planned to visit.
On the internet front, both cruise ships I have been on had Internet cafes with workstations, the Regent Seven Seas Navigator even had WIFI throughout the ship. The service is run by another arm of SeaMobile called MTN Satellite Services. They charge by the minute and the cruise line can offer several different plans to its guests. On the Seven Seas Navigator I had the option of 250 and 500 minutes. As part of Regent's loyalty program, after you cruise 21 nights you get free internet which is a very nice benefit. The 250 minute plan was $87.99 with a first time registration of $3.50. The 500 minute plan was about double. Additional minutes on the 250 minutes plan were $.35 and $.25 on the 500 minute plan. I find it interesting that they charge by the minute rather than the Kilobyte, but given all the activity I saw in the Internet Café I can understand why; minutes should get people off of the workstations faster but I was amazed how many people seemed oblivious and where typing email tomes in web based editors. I was told by the Internet Café manager that the average speed is about 65Kbps per user. Unfortunately I neglected to run a speed test, but from an end user perspective it was not broadband but response times where decent. If you want to see the world and have some IT skill they are looking for people, here is the job description.
I ended up purchasing the 250 minute plan which over 11 days gave us about 22 minutes a day. Since I had problems with my Sony VAIO P's wireless drivers, my wife and I ended up using our iPhones. We would connect to download email, disconnect, respond off line, then connect again to send. One of my major pet peeves with the iPhone's email application (ActiveSync/Hosted Exchange) is its inability to deal with deletions offline (you get an error message). I would love to know how Apple thought that was a good idea…Anyway, the plan worked out well and I even had some minutes left over to go to the Internet Café to check in with United Airlines online and print our boarding passes. I also tried Skype on the iPhone using the $2.95 per month unlimited subscription plan to call phones in the US and Canada. It worked well, the person on the other end heard a little breakup (I would expect that with constrained satellite uplink speeds), but we heard them very clearly. This made calling much cheaper ($.35 per minute on our plan) than using the in cabin wired phone or on board cell system, but still more expensive than the calling card (although you need a dry land wired phone!). During the entire 12 day trip we only had a couple hours one evening where we could not get connected. The default web page told us that interference was blocking the satellite signal.
I think bringing your own computing device makes a lot sense so you can perform tasks off line to save your minutes, and then connect for data transmission. I saw a couple of Dell Mini notebooks, and a Mac book. On the mobile device front, the BlackBerry was king (looked like mostly corporate types), although iPhones were around. I did see one bulky satellite phone (it reminded me of early cell phones), why someone would think you need one on today's cruise ship intrigued me, maybe they owned it or their company wanted them to have failsafe communication. The gentleman had to stand outside on the pool deck to make a call. I also thought that newer satellite phones could switch between cell and satellite.
The bottom line is that staying connected on a cruise today is possible and easy. You just have to do a little research on plan options with your cell phone carrier or purchasing an on board internet plan (I suggest bringing your WIFI enabled smartphone or netbook) make to cost manageable if you need to stay connected without needing to be online 24/7…
Posted by sskarlatos on October 14, 2009 at 11:00 AM in AT&T, Blackberry, Commentary, GSM, iPhone, Travel, Travel Technology, Verizon, VOIP | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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