Er, turn off mobile data and rely on wi-fi. Calls and texts still work and your phone will behave as if you are roaming abroad (i.e if you crack and turn on mobile data, prepare to open your wallet).
if apple hadn't bent over so badly to allow telcos to screw the customers with the whole tethering fiasco (which is still going on. unbelievable. all you sheeple giving out free money) they wouldn't even know you had a special needs phone.
If it did phone home when data is turned off explicitly then I'd have been completely and utterly screwed by AT&T for the month I spent in Europe.
what if i need to use data and plan to control how much i use? As i did on all my travels for the first day or two until i could secure a local SIM card.
And if they don't have data in the plan the carrier by default just doesn't forward the packets
AT&T (and most of the wireless industry) are merely toll-gate operators - they are very good at making sure you pay for any usage - even the usage you didn't want to make (ie, receiving an MMS on your non-data flip phone that you didn't intend - sorry, that's $2).