At&t iphone service while aboard... Charges, etc.

[queenbnpimpc]

i called at&t to add international to our phones. we will be in belize, cozumel, roatan and costa maya. i was told regardless of what plan i have i will be charged an outragous price if i use my internet. UNLESS im at one of the ports in an area that offers free wifi. does anyone know if this is correct or the guy i spoke to didn't know all his stuff? so, no sending emails, etc....while on ship and at ports?

[maja651]

I think you could use the Ship's wifi settings on the iphone, but you will have to pay the outrageous ship Internet fees (but probably still better than the AT&T fees). Have you considered texting instead if email? I have AT&T service as well and was told by them that the incoming texts are free, and outgoing are only 50 cents each. That is my plan for communication while at sea.

 

Michelle

[younglegend]

i called at&t to add international to our phones. we will be in belize, cozumel, roatan and costa maya. i was told regardless of what plan i have i will be charged an outragous price if i use my internet. UNLESS im at one of the ports in an area that offers free wifi. does anyone know if this is correct or the guy i spoke to didn't know all his stuff? so, no sending emails, etc....while on ship and at ports?

 

Using a free WiFi service in port will not charge your cell phone bill. The ship's WiFi will likely charge a per minute rate payable to your onboard account.

[fsuhockette]

Your agent is correct. Turn off your wifi! Our friend used theirs in one of the W. Caribbean ports to the tune of over $100 for about 10m of internet time.

 

We added the international texting and calling to our plan and only paid about $50 to text up to 50x and call in ports. We did NOT call on the boat - too $$.

[mommyto2girls]

Absolutely turn off your Data. You will run a bill into the hundreds if you don't. Ships wifi is alos very expensive. We only use text when on board we have global 50 with ATT for discounted texting and World Connect for discounted (still expensive) calling rates.

[russianmom]

Using data can be very expensive while traveling. My friend did not heed my warning last year and continued to use emails texting and facebook and her bill was hundreds of dollars when we returned...:eek:

 

Here is a chart that summarizes all plans and costs for AT&T internationally:

 

http://www.wireless.att.com/answer-center/main.jsp?t=solutionTab&ft=&ps=solutionPanels&locale=en_US&_dyncharset=UTF-8&solutionId=KB115921

 

This is from their website:

International data roaming can get expensive quickly.

 

For example, opening an email with a 5 megapixel picture in it, or downloading a 3-minute video on YouTube, each takes about 2 MB of data. The cost would be almost $40, based on pay-per-use international data rates of $0.0195/KB.

[garycarla]

You should make sure you know the difference between CELLULAR DATA and WIFI. Two very different things.

 

Cellular Data in foreign countries will run up a bill if you are not careful. If you access a WIFI onboard, or in port, then you pay whatever they charge.

[Carnac767]

The cheapest way to use your IPhone for calls while overseas is to get the Skype app. Then you can use it to make overseas calls at a very reasonable rate (or free if you're calling another Skype account.) You'll have to use an internet cafe (which are everywhere these days) for a wifi signal. In Europe, many coffee shops (such as Costa Cafe in England) have free wifi. I travel to Europe and South America several times a month and Skype is how I phone home. Oh, and the ship's internet service has such a slow data transfer rate that you won't be able to use it for Skype. It's agonizingly slow.

[queenbnpimpc]

I think i will stick to just texting. thanks for the info.