AT&T waiving Some Errant Non-U.S. Data Usage by iPhones--Also a Fix for this Horror

AT&T has something called International Roaming for its cell phone accounts. AT&T has agreements with certain non-U.S. cell phone networks, especially in Canada and Mexico, that allow one to make calls over those networks. It is very expensive, especially when it comes to data usage.

AT&T International Roaming used to be turned off by default, i.e. one had to specifically activate it. Now, or at least with the iPhone, the default is on and even if you make no calls while in say Canada or Mexico, the iPhone pulls down data via the non-U.S. telco's Edge network if the iPhone is on, even if you just use the Wi-Fi function. This has led to some iPhone users getting truely shocking bills, like over $5,000.

What happens if you live in a border area with Canada and Mexico? Well, your iPhone could inadvertantly hook up with a non-U.S. tower and slam you with a huge bill.

These things have happened. In fact, it happened to us while on a cruise ship off Mexico and in Mexican ports while using the ship's expensive Wi-Fi network in mid-July. We received the bill just last week. Fortunately, our bill for inadvertant non-U.S. data usage was only a couple hundred dollars, largely because the ship's expensive Wi-Fi constrained our iPhone use. If it had been $10-15 per day instead of $22 per hour we might have gotten socked with a huge bill.

So we called AT&T, calmly explained to a customer service rep what had happened and asked that the charges be removed. The rep was very pleasant, asked a few confirming questions, put us on hold for a few minutes and came back on with the news that the charges would be waived.

Relieved and emboldened, we asked what would happen if we were in South San Diego and inadvertantly got hooked up to a Mexican cell phone tower. The customer rep said to watch the phone's network sevice logo to see if it is picking up a non-U.S. tower and then don't use it. But I reminded him that an iPhone is on all the time picking up data with out knowing it, not just when making a call. His solution was for us to talk to AT&T International Roaming and have our iPhone's number blocked.

We were transferred to an AT&T International Roaming agent who quickly blocked our iPhone's number. He said we should call again if we ever visited another country, wanted to use our iPhone there with International Roaming and needed it's number to be unblocked. It would be much better if AT&T could just block data usage and not the phone calling capability but at least we do not have to worry any more about getting a huge unexpected bill.

If you want your iPhone's number blocked from inadvertantly using AT&T International Roaming, call 1-800-335-4685. [Bill Fox]