I made a bit of boo boo on my trip to Europe with respect to my phone usage.  A mistake that might cost me as much as $24.95.   Before I left for Europe, I signed for AT&T Global Traveler Add On for my iPhone.  Data roaming internationally can be ridiculously expensive.   It’s not unheard of someone racking up a couple thousand dollars in charges because he or she doesn’t know better or isn’t careful.

AT&T normally charges  0.0195 $/kb for international data, while the data add on includes a base level of Megabytes (1024 kb to a megabyte), and lower overage rate of .005 $/kb.  Unless one uses less than 1281 kilobytes, an add on package will be markedly cheaper.  Below is comparison of the available data plans, and how the pricing works out.

On the chart, I’ve cut off the Y Axis at $2000, as seen on the table the charges for data can well exceed a couple thousand dollars.  I used about 10 MBs in the course of 9 days abroad.  Without the data plan, it would’ve cost me around $200.  Instead I paid $24.95.  It’s almost a no-brainer to get the data add on if one’s going to use data while traveling internationally.  Having used my iPhone in Europe, I cannot rave enough about how great it is to be able to access google and google maps abroad.  My phone got me out of jam more than once.

Sounds good so far.  I signed up for the data plan before leaving.  I picked the right plan, the smallest data package as I easily stayed under the data limit or so I thought.  The problems?  My billing cycle ended on January 2nd.  I left Europe the morning of January 4th, and I used my phone on January 3rd.  Nor is 20 MBs  always 20 MBs.

AT&T has a particular ways of charging it’s customers.   AT&T bills based on what packages are active at the time of producing the bill, not what packages may or may not be active at the time of the use.  While I believe I can cancel my add on package, the information I’ve found so far is vague enough to warrant some caution.  For travelers who traverse to more exotic locales, it’s a greater risk as it’s possible charges do not make it to AT&T until months later (as much as 3 months according to AT&T).  In addition to having crossed over into another billing cycle, I failed to sign up for the plan early enough.  AT&T prorates the megabytes in a plan according to the date that one signed up.  I signed up on 24th out 30 days in the billing cycle, and as a result I only got 6/30 or 1/5 of the total 20 MBs (4 MBs) free.  This last item, I didn’t realize until I did some research previous to writing this post.  In actuality, I was able to knock off those excess charges because I called customer service earlier today because I didn’t understand why I was getting charged.  The woman I spoke to was kind enough to make an adjustment to my bill.

I’m hardly the only one to be trapped in the quagmire of of AT&T billing, some have ended up with bills in the 5 figures.  International roaming is a cash cow for AT&T.  Individuals at least make an attempt to be careful (which I wasn’t careful enough), and call customer service after the fact if there is a problem.  Many users are corporate users who never ever see a bill.  These are the users that AT&T is likely making a killing off of.