I PHONE Question

[brzymom]

Sorry--I did see this mentioned on another thread the other day, but I cannot find it now.

 

What does one need to do not to incur roaming charges, etc. on the iPhone?

 

My son leaves Saturday for Bermuda on Voyager of the Seas and does not want to come home to a crazy bill. He'd like to use it for his music and if there is wi-fi on ship to connect to the internet.

 

I know they charge you to use their computers to access internet, but does the ship also charge if you are using your own device?

 

I called AT&T and they were vague--said to call Apple--can anyone help? THANKS so much in advance!!

[6rugrats]

I would not expect AT&T to know this.

 

Go to "settings". The first choice will be "Airplane Mode" Turn to "on". DON'T change this during the cruise and your son's phone will not be receiving or sending data. Note that when you do this, it will also turn off your Wi-Fi on the phone; warn him he can't use the Wi-Fi function while on the ship, or his phone will be sending/receiving data and he will get a nasty surprise on his bill.

 

If he wants to connect to the internet, he needs to pay to use the ship's computer.

[cwc]

You will get charge for any type of connection whether you use your own device or cruiselines’ (Wi-Fi, regular phone, internet connection etc).

For internet service, you will not get the bill from AT&T when you get home because you will be connecting to the net through the ship provider. You will be getting the crazy bill at the end of the cruise from the on-board account, MUCH FASTER!

[6rugrats]

You will get charge for any type of connection whether you use your own device or cruiselines’ (Wi-Fi, regular phone, internet connection etc).

 

For internet service, you will not get the bill from AT&T when you get home because you will be connecting to the net through the ship provider. You will be getting the crazy bill at the end of the cruise from the on-board account, MUCH FASTER!

 

If Op's son uses the Wi-Fi on his iPhone to connect to the internet, he will indeed get a bill for roaming charges from AT&T, in addition to any charges from the ship.

[chromey]

If Op's son uses the Wi-Fi on his iPhone to connect to the internet, he will indeed get a bill for roaming charges from AT&T, in addition to any charges from the ship.

 

Why would you get charged ANYTHING, let alone roaming for using WiFi? I'm not an expert with AT&T billing so I'm not saying you're wrong, but it just seems a little odd that if you're not using a cellular network (AT&T) for connectivity, how would they have the capability/rights to charge you? As long as you're not connecting to cell towers (which Wi-Fi does not), then how do they even collect data to show you were using the internet at that time?

[cwc]

Dear 6rugrats,

 

I think you have the technology mixed up, Wi-Fi & Phone service are two different things.

 

Wi-Fi = a high-frequency wireless local area network. This mean the LOCAL network, in this case the ship, will provide the signal to their Wi-Fi hub, not AT&T. Since you are not using AT&T network, you will not be charge for "roaming", but you will be charge for using the ship's network.

 

As for phone service, you will be charged for roaming because your phone will be using the ship's antennas to transmit signal to AT&T network. That is where the roaming charge will shows up.

 

Cruisecritic has a very good articles on this topic.

The best way to avoid crazy charges, I say turn off the phone :D !

[kitty9]

Why would you get charged ANYTHING, let alone roaming for using WiFi? I'm not an expert with AT&T billing so I'm not saying you're wrong, but it just seems a little odd that if you're not using a cellular network (AT&T) for connectivity, how would they have the capability/rights to charge you? As long as you're not connecting to cell towers (which Wi-Fi does not), then how do they even collect data to show you were using the internet at that time?

 

If you use any cell phone with internet capability, you're going to incur the ship's connection fees. I made the mistake of using my iPhone as a computer to access the internet on a cruise and racked up nearly $1000 in charges for using the phone. Some ATT customers were getting bills for more than $2000 when they used them outside the US. I did get roaming charges and download charges from ATT. That's exactly why Apple eventually provided iPhone users with software updates that allowed them to turn off data roaming. Ships have the capability of blocking cell phones from using their satellite phone systems and using them for free.

 

To the OP. Tell your son to go to Settings and then to Data Roaming. Turn Data Roaming OFF. That way, if he still wants to use the phone as a phone only, he won't be racking up charges as the phone won't be automatically scanning for emails and other options that have fees.

[cruisinbuddy]

I read about a family of four that all had the new I phones. Each of them had at least one email address, some had 2. With the emails being constantly sent to the phones their bill was something like $4000.00. They were in Europe. I think he shoud disable the email.

[viviandr]

I took my I phone on my cruise to the Western Carribean last December. I had asked AT&T about it previously, and had them add one month's International Roaming to my account for December. My normal bill is about $65 per month. The bill for December 2007 was $124.00.

 

I only made phone calls home (no longer than 10 minutes each) when I was in Ft. Lauderdale. I did not make any phone calls while on the ship or in the ports.

 

I did write e-mails describing the day's events each evening to my daughter, and saved them to send when I was in a port and could access free providers. (This was great, as it became a kind of journal for me) I didn't send the e-mails while on board the ship using the ship's internet.

 

I don't think it was worth doing the International Roaming, and in future, will write the e-mails and save them to send when I am back on US soil and can use the edge network.