You Can Spend $750 in International Data Roaming in One Minute on AT&T | Hacker News Reader

You Can Spend $750 in International Data Roaming in One Minute on AT&T

jeffreifman.com

94 pointsmartin_55 comments

I think the title understates one issue and overstates another.

He had a $750 bill, because he had no data package. They were willing to settle it after the fact for the $30 15MB data package; which seems fairly reasonable.

On the other hand, it seems that at the end he claims, and I don't know if it is true or not; that AT&T didn't bill him for his US usage for the hour prior; and then dumped all that into one bucket at the higher rate. I think this is a serious thing that really matters; if they are charging you for international data that is not actually international that is (in my mind) fraud. Proving that, is probably next to impossible for an individual.

I was surprised as well. This looked exactly like how banks used to resolve transactions out of order to maximize fees. (And would spot you the overdraft for a modest fee; the practice got egregious enough congress got involved.)

Hopefully this isn't a widespread practice, but I could imagine it easily be part of the shenanigans regularly played.

Living close to the Canada US border this happens all the time.

Op could have been at the border for an hour in the lineup roaming as the line can be several hours to get through at the US-can truck border crossing and/or the peace arch crossing they traveled through, need more details.

My phone might pickup a cell tower in US while in Canada at home and I get hit with roaming...

Just need to contact carrier and explain that you were not across border.

There is a reason why your phone has turn off data when roaming options... For people who don't have roaming data plans so you don't accidently use roaming data.

I'm the OP. I heard similar stories - a friend got an AT&T bill for $1200 after getting off a plane in Europe (from US) and turning it on for 1 minute.

I'd bet my reputation that AT&T is bundling data packets across the border - and that this could be the basis of a big class action suit.

In my case, I was driving northward from Oak Harbor to Vancouver. Roaming was off on my AT&T phone - so there should have been no intl data billed until I turned it on for that one minute.

A roaming clearing house is an organisation that manages the billing between carriers in roaming agreements. These clearing houses exchange data in a common format (bytes per session) between telcos. It's almost certain that AT&T use one for their roaming agreements.

If pressed, AT&T would need to correlate three pieces of information - the clearing house data, their billing, and the canadian network provider's logs. Each entity is legally separate here - if all three logs line up, it's going to be hugely compelling evidence.

It's very unlikely that AT&T is gathering up your data charges and billing you as you go over the border - it would be supreme incompetence at a carrier of this scale. More likely, something's gone wrong at the clearing house, and you should press them for aligned, detailed records. (I audited telco billing systems for a few years.)

But, is it really worth $30? I'd just pay TBH.

I think what he's suggesting isn't that the logs don't line up, but that AT&T may be purposely switching the phone to use the data roaming opportunity. Even though carriers gouge each other horribly on roaming, the marginal profit may be even more to the consumer. If this is true, it would be a scandal.

OP sounded pretty sure, but I'm skeptical.

I have the same issue. In-laws have a business in a small town north of Port Huron which is across the lake from Canada.

With nothing between the town and Canada but the lake, often my phone would randomly switch between AT&T or Rogers. I'll get hit with insanely expensive roaming charges without realizing it. Not till the phone switches back to ATT and I get a text message. That requires me to call ATT and deal with it.

It's such a headache that I just turn off the phone when I go there. My in-laws and all their friends in that area sticks with Verizon for this reason. ATT needs to find a way to be smarter about geo-location and not just randomly switch around when one is near the border.

Turn off data roaming.

Can't you just go into the mobile network settings and manually select a network instead of leaving it on auto?

> My in-laws and all their friends in that area sticks with Verizon for this reason.

How does that help? My Verizon phone used to roam onto Canadian networks if I got too close to the border.

> ATT needs to find a way to be smarter about geo-location and not just randomly switch around when one is near the border.

No kidding. It's not like they don't know exactly where you are.

$30 for 15MB of generic mobile phone data is insane.

I think you're right on the money on the second point. How easy/reliable is it for someone to turn off data roaming? I wouldn't be surprised if even mobile operators were confused over what exactly constitutes data roaming in some areas.

The telecommunications industry's monetization plan has often been about creating esoteric plan restrictions, charging customers up the wazoo when they violate these restrictions, while not giving customers effective tools for monitoring or managing their usage.

Note that the GP mistyped and it's actually 120MB for $30 (it's in one of the pictures of his text messages). Still not exactly reasonable, but at least not quite so outrageous.

I'm in England. I get "unlimited" 3g through GiffGaff for £15 per month (that is the transitional price from an earlier £12 per month to the new £18 or £20 per month).

You're specifically not allowed to tether using this plan and it's smart phones only - tablets, dongles, etc are not covered. I use over 10 GB of 3g data each month and they haven't complained.

So, 120 MB for $30 (£20) per month sounds pretty steep to me.

It could very well be that they only charge by intervals of 30$/GB; meaning the minimum that they are willing to charge is 30$ but he could have used up to one gig.

It's common enough for U.S. Carriers to do this.

No comment on whether that's a fair price.

Does that £15 per month cover international use? That's the reason why it was so steep for the author.

Not currently.

However roaming charges within the European Union are currently regulated to a maximum of €0.20 ($0.23) per MB. So a 120MB plan would be €24 ($27.32). That being said, if it isn't delayed by a future proposal, all roaming charges within the EU will be abolished on December 15th, 2015. True international roaming will still be ridiculously expensive, no doubt.

EDIT: My numbers don't include VAT (which is 20% in the UK) - so it's actually currently more expensive in the EU than in the example given in the post.

But the EU price you quote is the legal maximum they can charge you without any package. So that $ 27.32 is the EU equivalent of the $ 750 that's in the post title. (And I think the US price also does not include VAT since, just like Europe, it varies by state)

I'm in the US, but I keep a cheap T-Mobile plan with unlimited international data for when I'm traveling abroad.

In terms of international data roaming for a US customer, I've actually found AT&T quite reasonable. On a recent trip, I subscribed to the 120MB for $30 package which actually works pretty well for me rather than doing a lot of fussing around with local SIM cards.

But I suddenly get a warning message that I'm over $100 usage. I call AT&T. What had happened was that because of weather I had flown out early prior to my scheduled start of service. The AT&T rep was very friendly and back-dated by service start. Exactly the way to handle it. No complaints.

(On another trip I got a fairly large bill because of a big download I didn't mean to make. But that was really on me and I more blame the app maker for not warning me that I was making a 250MB download on 3G.)

This is crazy. International roaming is one reason I switched to T-Mobile. I recently traveled through Southeast Asia and had usable internet throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (looks like no more free internet in Vietnam). The internet was about 256-512 Kbps and was available even in rural locations. I also had access to my US number when I was on wifi - calls in and out. T-mobile coverage isn't perfect in the States, but overall pretty happy with the switch.

I went to the same places and paid $5 for 7 days prepaid 3G. Got 10-20mbps at least.

That's the right way, but internet on landing was super convenient. I bought proper SIMs for the places I stayed longer than a few days, but did it outside the airport (cheaper and no lines) once I was settled in.

Yeah, it's great - but it's important to note that, despite the un-carrier moves, you only get that free data roaming with a post-paid plan. If you are on prepay and paying the exact same amount for the same service within the US, you'll still get charged the extortionate data prices when you roam (although you won't get a massive bill, it'll just stop when your credit runs out in a few seconds).

> International roaming is one reason I switched to T-Mobile.

It's nice that it doesn't cost any extra, but in my limited experience with it (in Canada and the UK), it is extremely slow. It's fine for having your phone picking up your mail, but things like Google Maps don't seem to work so well, and anything that involves uploading speech for recognition just seems to fail.

Yes, because you can't type what you want to ask google, you need speech recognition, you delicate flower.

Yes, there are times when it's useful. That's why it exists, you insufferable prick. As it happens, I was using Glass a lot during that trip.

I travel back and forth to Canada all the time, and ATT makes a total mess of it. I've had all the Canada packages available for some years now, and they still regularly mess up billing -- I've had the Canada package disappear off my bill, and on other occasions been charged the wrong amount for the package or texts.

It doesn't help that most of the CSRs are clearly untrained about the different packages -- I've spent hours on the phone undoing mistakes made on previous calls.

Long story short, I'm finally switching to T-Mobile. After a couple near $1K bills it's clear roaming is pure profit for ATT -- T-Mobile's texts are free and basic data roaming is too. ATT still charges ~50c/msg. I'm going from ATT's 2 lines, 4GB total with Canada for ~$190 (typically more like $250-$300+) to T-Mobile's 2 lines, unlimited data and global roaming for $100 flat, no overage. It's a no-brainer.

The EU is taking steps to abolish exorbitant roaming fees like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati...

Great. I can't wait for domestic call charges and monthly fees to rise as a result.

Hmm, interesting - for comparison, here in EU the telco MUST disconnect your data after you burn through 50EUR worth of roaming charges and send you a notification (which is usually an SMS to which you reply if you want the data reenabled).

Saved me and my family alot of money a few times when we forgot data roaming on and apps started downloading updates.

I had a similar experience but didn't have to pay. AT&T's i18n data system (the whole thing) is a piece of junk.

* I unlocked my phone (iphone4S), went to Asia, and bought a SIM card for a local carrier. The SIM card didn't work because I had unlocked my phone the day before leaving, and AT&T claims they need 30 days to process unlock requests.

* Fine. I bought AT&T's data roaming plan, and turned data on a few hours later once I confirmed AT&T had charged me. Data worked OK, though I couldn't get texts, and was therefore locked out of my work email which had text-based MFA. Alright.

* I return to the US and promptly cancel the month-to-month i18n data plan. Phone behaves normally.

* A full week after being back in the US, I get a text from AT&T saying my data is suspended for excess use. I call them (this is at 9pm and I'm trying to get dinner) and they drag me on for 45 minutes. Their system didn't recognize my i18n plan purchase and they wanted $700. Eventually they got an adjuster to drop the charge completely.

Moral: even if you play AT&Ts games you'll still get burned. Request for Startup: a telecom customer service provider.

This and many cases like it are now illegal in Canada thanks to the CRTC's new Wireless code of conduct.

Among other things, overages are capped at $50.

More details here :

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12/02/wireless-code-of-con...

I'll be honest, this is one of the reasons I use pre-paid (StraightTalk). It automatically deducts $50/mo., so it's just as convenient as a contract, but I know I can't be overbilled, because there is no bill. Only difference is, you pay at the start of the month instead of the end.

Just the peace of mind, knowing that crazy charges can't happen because you have your phone on while abroad, is worth it.

On the English coast, the white cliffs would sometime mean that you were not inline with an English tower but if the weather is right you could pick up a French telephone tower.

Much to the annoyance to the local residence the telephone company would mark you as roaming and all data and calls for that day would be charged as international. I was caught out about 10 years ago, one would hope charging was more granular these days, however the roaming issue does still exist:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-21739029

I always wonder who is pocketing this money. In the simplest case you have two operators. You own (local) and the 'foreign'.

In the simplest setup you would have a price structure that is foreign charge + local charge. What probably is inflating it is that both local and foreign operator charge a service charge, which is where the insane prices come into existence.

So who are overcharging here? Both?

My old company explicitly stated that international prices were foreign operator plus current charge, but the foreign operator prices were quite inflated compared to what friends in those countries were paying at the time.

This is about more than the rate, of course, but I was surprised to see that kind of cost for just crossing the Canadian border.

For comparison -- my home carrier in France is SFR. In the UK or in the Netherlands (I haven't been elsewhere in Europe recently, but this is probably similar for other European countries as well) data roaming is 24 euro cents/MB.

I do see data roaming rates more like AT&T's when I'm in Malaysia - 10 euros/MB (yeah, I get a local SIM). But that's far afield - not just driving into a neighboring country.

This is why I stick to my grandfathered unlimited data plan (even though it means I have no tethering feature) and switch off data roaming.

It hurts me to do this -- I'd gladly change if the marginal costs weren't so horrific. But the idiotic carriers their noses to spite their faces: if they spent less work on generating billable events they'd probably get more revenue and spend less on overhead to get it. Bob Frankston estimates that 30% of network traffic is just managing the tollbooths!

I just buy an unlocked cell phone and buy a sim card for each country I go to. When I go to France, costs me 20 Euros for unlimited calls (including to the US), unlimited texts and 3Gb of data.

What if someone wants to call me? If I'm abroad it's mostly for vacation, I can give my new number to family members wishing to contact me. If I can't do that? I still get texts and voicemails through Google Voice on my phone. And if needed I can enable calls through data on my phone using hangouts.

Another great feature for local SIMs is that they are often "caller pay." So that if your family does want to call your French phone number from the USA, then they end up paying for the call, not you :-)

I'm Canadian, and my first stop when driving into the USA is to stop at the first department store I come across and buy a T-mobile SIM. If they don't have any, I just buy the cheapest "burner" phone and take the SIM out and pop it into my iPhone.

Sad story, been there (in Europe). It is a legalized robbery.

"They also were unable to document the bandwidth usage to any detail but this is partly understandable for privacy reasons."

Ahahahahah

Ha! Fido.ca lists roaming data at over $6 per KB. I asked a rep and confirmed on my contract.

So at 4G, that's about, what, $10,000-$30,000 per second?

That is so outrageous. They clearly do this insane billing because it’s left over from the GPRS days, and it pushes people into the also overpriced plans.

There needs to be some sort of legislation passed to limit this, but since it only matters internationally it’s a gray area and carriers are getting away with it.

Does anyone know what it actually costs a carrier to have you on roaming data? For example is AT&T being charged extra by the Canadian carrier for the data you use?

If the OP is reading or anyone who travels internationally get Freedompop. It's almost free.

What about T-Mobile? http://www.t-mobile.com/simple-choice-international-plans.ht...

freedom pop is an app.

Op didn't have WiFi.

This app requires mobile data or wifi

this does not fix his problem because if he WiFi they wouldn't have been roaming to begin with.

If he used the app, he would be roaming, incurring data charges.

Can't tell if you didn't logically think this through or you are pumping your own app.

When I goto US, from Canada, I use T-Mobile Sim for unlimited calling and data 3$ a day...

If you are a US resident you have plenty of carrier options that cover unlimited entire North America coverage.

Also the OP could have cached/saved the area in google maps or installed another GPS/navi software that has a offline map mode.

Now to the article... Should have planned ahead. So many travel addons from carriers, using a SIM card from country you are traveling to... Which I know is available at the exact border crossing shops at the border that the OP went through

Huh?

I have a (physical) device called a FreedomPop. It is a local wifi hotspot that routes traffic over a mobile data network. And it's awesome for giving the middle-finger to overpriced hotel wifi services and the like.

www.freedompop.com (I have no connection other than a very satisfied user). I'm so satisfied that I won't even post my affiliate code, lest someone think I'm shilling for my own benefit.

Or you could do exactly the same thing from your Android phone, provided you've rooted it. Installing Cyanogenmod makes it even easier (you won't need to download an app; the wifi access point is right in the settings), but isn't required.

I'm curious, what kind of data transfer rate do you need to get a solid call through? In the past when I tried to make WIFI calls through Google Voice "Hangout Dialer" the call quality was poor.

For VOIP calls you don't need much bandwidth, but you do need low latency and low jitter. Both are pretty bad on cell-phone data connections, so it's rarely worth the bother.

However, these comments are about providing a wifi hotspot that routes over the data connection rather than VOIP.

I recently went to Mexico and was pleasantly surprised to get a text message telling me that roaming data and text was just fine and that calls would be billed at 10c per minute. The hotel I stayed at had wifi, so whenever I needed to make a call, I made sure my phone was connected to wifi. When it was, the carrier changed from Movistar to T-Mobile, and calls were unlimited just like I was in the US.

The only way I would go back is if T-Mobile suddenly ceased to exist.

Obligatory, sort of related post from 2006. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-...

"Teenager checking Facebook in Antigua runs up £9,000 phone bill": http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2353904/teenager-ch...

"Woman hit with £12k holiday phone bill for downloading BBC sitcom": http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/517556/12k-holiday-phone-bi...

"VC’s mobile phone bill sets alarm bells ringing": http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coimbatore/vcs-mobile-ph...

"Alberta PC leadership hopeful Thomas Lukaszuk dialed up $20,000 in data roaming charges on 2012 international trip": http://www.calgarysun.com/2014/08/25/alberta-pc-leadership-h...

"Holidaymaker faced eviction after phone giant Orange took almost £1,000 from her bank account for bill she racked up by checking her emails in Thailand": http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2716750/Holidaymaker...

"'Orange billed me £1,477 for £48 worth of data'": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household...

"Arnaldo Brown’s million-dollar phone bill due to ‘roaming’": http://loopjamaica.com/2014/10/30/latest-jamaica-news-arnald...

I got 6GB of maps, 22GB wiki snapshot, an several GB of talks and pdfs on my phone. Just buy sd card.

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