Note: This post was updated on September 3, 2010 and should only serve as a guide. Talk to at&t for the most up to date information!
Avoid complications and big bills when and do not go abroad without properly configuring your iPhone.
Use this post as a guide for things you should consider when you set your iPhone up to go abroad (and reconfigure once you return).
Too much work? We agree!
Solvate Talent Marlene Eldemire is an executive assistant who researched this post and can do it for you. Just submit a request to connect on a complimentary call with her or call 646.720.7110.
Want to do it yourself? Read on:
This is the conclusive, exhaustive and painfully detailed how-to-set-up-your-iPhone-to-go-abroad-so-as-to-not-add-several-decimal-places-to-your-at&t-bill. Google “iPhone data bill abroad” to find some horror stories from the less fortunate.
Want to avoid a similar fate while you are abroad? Solvate can research the best data and voice abroad plans for you, set up your add-ons and remove them promptly when you return. Send us request details, call 646.720.7110 or email delegate@solvate.com. (This is part of our Travel Planner and Customer Service Haggling services).
Read ahead for the full rundown on how this complicated issue works.
And don’t let iPhone friends go abroad without reading this too.
Don’t want to deal with the hassle? Let Solvate manage the entire set-up with at&t and your iPhone, prep you with a trip summary, and take care of removing add-ons upon your return. Get started with this form or by reaching us at teamalpha@solvate.com and 866.560.8463
Voice
Texting
Data
Call at&t
Last absolutely necessary steps
When you return
Voice
You do NOT need to be on a special international plan to make or receive calls abroad, but you DO need to have your phone “turned on” for international calling if it is not already. Your iPhone must have international capabilities. (Yes, there is a difference. You’ll need to call at&t to make both changes.)
You pay per minute for voice calls abroad, regardless if you are calling or receiving. This is a flat “voice roaming” charge per minute.
Good news, you do NOT pay any additional international long distance charges per minute, just the voice roaming rate. Let’s say you are in Brazil. You can call Brazil, the US or Thailand at the same (steep) rate.
at&t offers a $5.99 World Traveler plan. All this plan does is give you a cheaper voice roaming charge per minute. This basically pays for itself after ten or fifteen minutes of calls. Caveat: World Traveler only gives you a cheaper rate for about 85 of the 200 countries at&t offers service for. The rest of the countries cost the same whether you have World Traveler or not. Example: To call from the U.K. the cost is $1.29 per minute & the ost with the plan is $.99 per minute.
Look at this list of countries covered by at&t World Traveler to see if the countries you are visiting are even covered by the plan. If they are, you can see your savings per minute with WorldTraveler.
If you’re headed to Mexico, you need the at&t Mexico plan, not World Traveler (remember, this is ONLY for voice). For $4.99/month, voice roaming is $0.59 instead of $0.99/minute.
If you’re going to Canada, you need the at&t Canada plan, not World Traveler. For $4.99/month, voice roaming is $0.59 instead of $0.79/minute.
Going on a cruise? at&t has special instructions for iPhone users going on cruises.
Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands? No need to keep reading, unless you enjoy pain. at&t considers that “the US.”
What about Visual Voicemail?
Visual Voicemail only charges you a permanent voice rate, meaning that it costs you voice minutes to check it. It has nothing to do with data. So it doesn’t matter if Visual Voicemail is on or off when you are abroad. It will cost you minutes either way (old-fashioned or Visual) to check voicemail.
Further, if your phone is OFF, someone leaving a message will not costs you minutes. If your phone is ON, you get charged the same minute rate if the message is over 30 seconds long.
Texting
You do not need a special texting plan to send or receive texts abroad.
Cost to receive: zero, kind of.
If you are on the 200 or 1500 texts/month plan, texts received abroad are free, but are deducted from your monthly text allotment. So if you are on the 200 plan and receive 200 texts while abroad, your 201st text received will cost you $0.50.
Cost to send: $0.50 per text. $1.30 to send a picture message.
Global Text Plan is $10.00 for 50 messages.
It costs the same to send a text no matter what texting plan you are on, and whether you are texting to another friend in that country, in the US or in any other country at&t has service.
MMS: iPhones don’t allow MMS, so no worries about what they cost. You can’t send or receive MMS, so there is no cost for them on the iPhone.
Data
You use data on your iPhone when you browse Safari, use apps, email, check your Visual Voicemail or download music on iTunes. You can even use data when your phone is off, depending on your push settings (see more below on this).
Wifi: Good news, if you are in a wifi zone abroad, you do not pay at&t for data roaming. Repeat, if you are wifi connected abroad, and very few places offer wifi, at&t will not charge you for data roaming. Keep a log of when you are wifi-connected so you can dispute if at&t messes up your bill. Check restrictions especially if using wifi while staying in a hotel.
If you aren’t in a wifi zone and you don’t have an international data plan, data costs $0.02/kb, or about $20/MB. (1MB = 1,024 kb)
If you are on an international data plan, but in a country that at&t doesn’t cover, data also costs $0.02/kb.
So how much data do you use?
Monthly usage between 100 and 400 MB is not uncommon for iPhone users. Read our instructions on how to calculate your average monthly iPhone data usage and multiply your MB by 20 to get your estimated cost/month if you spend a whole month abroad at your normal data usage level.
For example:
75MB is low end of usage. At this rate, a week abroad would cost about $400 in data roaming alone without an international data plan.
Now that you know your usage, figure out if at&t’s international data plans even cover the countries you’re visiting. Does this feel familiar? Separate process for Voice and Data, different countries and rules for each.
Look for the countries you are visiting on this list of countries covered by at&t’s international data plan.
If the countries you are visiting are on this list, here are your international data plan options:
at&t rep Donald Smith in the International Provisions department confirmed these rates are current as of 9/2/10:
If you are visiting countries at&t’s international data plans do not cover, either plan on spending a lot of money, or take the steps below to completely turn off your data. Note in the chart above that you can hop on a more expensive data plan and get a cheaper data rate for countries not covered. So you might want a data plan to get half the rate, $0.01/kb on countries not covered.
But wait! There’s more! For the following countries, the rate is $0.02/kb, even on a data plan: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bolivia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Brunei, Faroe Islands, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Macau, Macedonia (former Yugoslavia), Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Venezuela.
Call at&t
Now, call at&t to:
- Get authorized to make international calls or by going to your online account.
- Get on World Traveler if you want it
- Get on a data plan if you want it
- Confirm all the rates here, in case at&t has changed things up
Call at&t International Provisions Center (open 24/7!) at 800.335.4685
(To reach at&t in general, dial 611 from your phone, or 800.331.0500, then press 1 for English, 0, then 0 again for a live representative).
Make sure to write down the following:
- Agent name
- Time and date of call
- When your billing cycle starts
Now do the following things to your phone.
- Turn data roaming OFF:
Go to Settings –> General –> Network –> Data Roaming
- Reset your data “usage tracker.”
(at&t says you’ll be able to track data usage for your trip — assuming they are reporting it as it comes.)
Go to Settings –> General –> Usage
Last absolutely necessary steps when you return
Remove your add-ons! World Traveler and your international data plan will stay on your monthly bill indefinitely until you cancel them.
International charges may not get charged to your account immediately. You can wait one week to remove any add-ons or check on line to verify that all of the transactions have appeared on your account. If you cancel the add-ons before all of the charges are posted, you will be invoiced at the full rate for those transactions.
Solvate is America’s premier on demand workforce. Solvate Talent Marlene Eldemire is an executive assistant and certified travel agent who researched this post and can handle your iPhone plans, travel plans and dozens of other things. Just submit a request to connect on a complimentary call with her or call 646.720.7110.
I wish I had known this a few months ago!
Really helpful information though, thanks.
You can’t use visual voicemail with a wifi connection, fyi.
Good info, thank you.
I’d like to add, as I just got off the phone with AT&T, that when you add a global data plan it is pro rated. That is the cost and the MB per month. So you need to ask them to backdate it to the beginning of your billing cycle if you are expecting to use the full MB for your plan in the rest of the month.
i just got off the phone with at& t and they said that i would only need the international plan turned on for the time i will be overseas. One person told me to turn it on in the beginning of my billing cycle one told me to call the day before while I was still in the US. HELP!
Yeah I’m from the UK and just came back from a 1 week trip to LA. Called up to ask about data roaming before I went but didnt appreciate what the cost implications were. For emails and a little browsing my roaming bill came to £540. Total bill (£90 phone – didnt actually make that many calls) was £690. Bang goes the summer holiday fund for the family..
So do yourself a favor and TURN ROAMING OFF when abroad. Just use Wi-Fi
also, just to add a comment for people who don’t mind just getting a local phone and suspending your at&t contract and and essentially turning your iphone into an ipod touch.
If you call At&t they will suspend your plan for the duration of your trip at a cost of $10/month. You freeze your plan, keep your number, don’t have to pay for a plan that you aren’t using and don’t have to worry about any unexpected charges. I brought my old GSM phone (which AT&T will unlock for you for free) got a local number (and a skype out number) and just use my iphone when I’m in a wifi area and make calls on it via the skype app.
This article is incorrect. The AT&T international data add-ons charges AND data are pro-rated. Let’s say that you traveled overseas the first week of your billing cycle and had signed up for the 20MB data plan before you left. While abroad, you used 15MB of data. If you cancel when you return (one week into your billing cycle), your data will be prorated for that month, meaning that you’ll get ~5MB of data, thus resulting an a $20/MB charge for the 10MB overage. By turning off data usage early, you’ll get a $200 data overage charge.
Short story – keep your data add-on activated and/or backdate it then do the complicated math and guesswork to be sure you have enough data allowance.