iPhone Billing and International Issues

Well, here in Europe we are accustomed to roaming charges.

If you didn't pay attention to what network your mobile phone connected to
abroad, you could incur quite large bills just for calling and getting
called. As a consequence there were tables published of which provider
abroad offered the best deal on fees for calling, SMS, and roaming charges.

Due to people complaining about high phone bills when travelling abroad the
EU introduced a regulation that limited roaming charges to 0.49 € (+VAT) for
calling and to 0.26€ (+VAT) for getting called. This regulation is in effect
since July, 1st.

I'm afraid this regulation doesn't apply to US cititzens visiting Europe, as
it is solely for European providers.

Udo

According to an article in USA TODAY, a teenager in New Jersey found a way to unlock iPhone so it could be used with other carriers. I guess somebody was bound to do it sooner or later.

<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2007-08-24-unlocked-iphone_N.htm>

Ryoichi Morita

On 8/25/07 09:32 AM, "Roy Morita" <rmoritaagriumretail.com> wrote:

> According to an article in USA TODAY, a teenager in New Jersey found a way to
> unlock iPhone so it could be used with other carriers. I guess somebody was
> bound to do it sooner or later.
>
>
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2007-08-24-unlocked-iphone_N.htm>
>

Read that procedure. No thanks, I can wait.

--
John C. Welch

On 26-Aug-2007, at 04:39, John C. Welch wrote:

> On 8/25/07 09:32 AM, "Roy Morita" <rmoritaagriumretail.com> wrote:
>
>> According to an article in USA TODAY, a teenager in New Jersey
>> found a way to
>> unlock iPhone so it could be used with other carriers. I guess
>> somebody was
>> bound to do it sooner or later.
>>
>>
> <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2007-08-24-unlocked-
> iphone_N.htm>
>>
>
> Read that procedure. No thanks, I can wait.

There are already at least two software only unlocks for the iPhone,
and I'm sure there will be more.

With a reliable unlock, I will probably go ahead and spend the money
on an iPhone when my current RAZR dies (which it should do in about
10 months since the warranty expires in 9 and every motorola phone
I've owned has died within a month of the warranty expiring).

> There are already at least two software only unlocks for the iPhone,
> and I'm sure there will be more.

Don't hold your breath. AT&T is (stupidly) trying to SLAPP sue them into
oblivion

--
John C. Welch

My son and daughter's iphone service was shut off. Why? I just learned that we have a $3600 bill for internet charges while in France! We were under the impression that we had unlimited internet usage, since we pay $30 per month per line for unlimited internet. I was told by the AT&T representative that our service was only for domestic internet.

I informed him that the salesperson never told us the service was only for domestic. Today it is very common for people to travel outside the country, so if an unlimited service is in fact limited to the US it should be strongly stated. He said that this issue is discussed on page 50 and page 95 of the new user manual!! I told him that most people do not read though a 100 page manual and that if they really wanted to inform people of the international internet charges the salespeople need to make a big deal about it when you sign up for "unlimited" internet service, and perhaps it should not be buried on page 50 and page 95! Since the representative quickly referenced those two pages, I am quite certain that this problem has happened often.

I told him that I would never have allowed my children to use their iphone to access the internet had I known that they did not have unlimited internet usage. We had free computer internet access available anyway.

I told him that I needed the phone service for which we are paying restored promptly. After all, we are back in the States, and in any case we would never access the internet overseas with the iphone again. He said that the only way to get the service turned back on would be to either pay $1500 immediately, or sign up for an international service which would reduce the charges to $670!!

I also asked him why, if they will not turn on the service since the bill is so high, did they not at any time while the bill was being run up, contact us regarding the problem. He said that they do not have enough customer service representatives to do that. I told him that was their problem. It appears that since they cannot provide good service they expect their customers to pay!

As I got no satisfaction from the conversation with the representative, I asked to speak to his supervisor. He informed me that there was no supervisor available, but that he could email his supervisor and I would hear back within 24 to 48 hours!

A friend suggested I google iphone billing problems since there were probably many other people with the same problem. Guess what? That is exactly what I found.

We cannot allow this deception to continue. Apple should know that their partner is really giving them a bad name as well.

On Sep 2, 2007, at 12:32 PM, Paul Wishingrad wrote:

> A friend suggested I google iphone billing problems since there
> were probably many other people with the same problem. Guess what?
> That is exactly what I found.

As I said earlier in this thread, it astounds me that a) people don't
read their contracts, and b) they assume that everything is the same
outside the US as in the US. I feel for you, but, hey, you got a
contract and a manual.


Kirk

Apple must re-evaluate their relationship with AT&T or their iPhone
sales will suffer if they haven't already.

dokeefe <dokeefenew.rr.com> wrote:

> Apple must re-evaluate their relationship with AT&T or their iPhone
> sales will suffer if they haven't already.

Why ? ... i would guess all other carriers have simmilar practices when
it comes to international call and data costs ?

/thomas

I have no idea what AT & T is like overseas, but would never use their
services again in Australia. My son has just bought an iPhone, here in Oz,
but my advice to him _not_ to go with AT & T in 2008 will be based on our
own ruinous experiences of _continually_ incorrect charges.

This telco has been dropped by retailers in Oz for pre-paid mobiles.

Paul,
W. Australia

On 09/04/2007 04:42 AM, "dokeefe" <dokeefenew.rr.com> wrote:

> Apple must re-evaluate their relationship with AT&T or their iPhone
> sales will suffer if they haven't already.

Wait, there's some magical cell provider who isn't a rapacious conniving
robber baron? It sure ain't sprint, verizon, or t-mobile.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On Sep 4, 2007, at 5:42 AM, dokeefe wrote:

> Apple must re-evaluate their relationship with AT&T or their iPhone
>
> sales will suffer if they haven't already.
>

While I feel for the people who have been stuck with large roaming
bills, it is (in most cases by their own admission) at least partly
their own responsibility. And before we jump to any sort of judgement
about Apple's decision to go with AT&T we should really consider what is
going on here.

Ultimately the choice of AT&T isn't the source of people's complaints.
 The primary complaint has been that Apple chose to *lock us in* to AT&T.

But let's consider what we are getting in return. By all accounts,
Apple got AT&T to work closely with them to tailor the service offering,
in order to make it a true "Apple experience." The iTunes based service
initiation and visual voicemail are just two examples of what must have
required significant cooperation from AT&T. Moreover, iPhone customers
are getting quite a discount on the service charges. AT&T charges
iPhone customers $60 for 450 minutes of talk and unlimited data. A
comparable voice&PDA-data plan on AT&T would cost $85. (In fact, iPhone
plans are $25 less across the board than comparable voice+PDA-data plans
regardless of included minutes.) T-mobile will charge you $80 for 300
minutes of talk and unlimited data, or a $20 savings with the iPhone.
 For the privilege of being the sole carrier for the iPhone, AT&T is
giving all iPhone customers a $25 per month discount.

At $300 per year savings, or roughly the cost of the iPhone itself in
two years, I would be willing to endure the inconvenience of having to
rent a phone for the time I spend abroad.

And let's consider the alternatives. If Apple had chosen Verizon or
Sprint/Nextel, the same people complaining about not being able to use
foreign SIMs abroad would be complaining about not being able to use
their phone at all outside the US. And the rest of the world would have
been left out until Apple got around to offering a GSM iPhone.

As for the other GSM carrier, T-mobile doesn't seem to offer significant
advantages to AT&T. AT&T's coverage is more robust, and the fact that
T-mobile is owned by Deutche Telekom doesn't seem to give it much of an
advantage when it comes to international roaming.

IMHO this whole griping about AT&T is a case of consumers being quick to
point out what they are not getting (ability to roam freely using third
party SIM cards), and not really considering what they get in return
(simple activation, visual voice mail and other integrated services,
discounts on monthly charges). No one is ever fully satisfied with
their cell carrier (myself included), and everyone wants their cake and
eat it, too, I guess.

Tomoharu

On 3-Sep-2007, at 04:15, Kirk McElhearn wrote:
> On Sep 2, 2007, at 12:32 PM, Paul Wishingrad wrote:
>> A friend suggested I google iphone billing problems since there
>> were probably many other people with the same problem. Guess what?
>> That is exactly what I found.
>
> As I said earlier in this thread, it astounds me that a) people don't
> read their contracts, and b) they assume that everything is the same
> outside the US as in the US. I feel for you, but, hey, you got a
> contract and a manual.

well, in point of fact, you probably did not get a printed contract.
As the OP stated, the information was on page 50 and 95 of the
manual. Really, who reads manuals? 100 page manuals?

I can't remember the last time I read ANY manual, much less a 100
page one. I've been playing WoW for almost three years now and I'v
STILL never read the manual for it, or the terms of service, or the
EULA.

I called Verizon and asked them to send me a copy of the actual
contract I'd signed. They could not do it electronically. First, I
was told they had to send me a copy by snail mail. Then, when it
arrived, it was obviously NOT the contract, but some kind of
summary. Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view), we'd
kept a copy at my office of what I'd signed in September 2005.
Indeed, it does specify an early termination fee or charge (I forget
the verbiage), which in both my personal and legal opinion, is a flat-
out penalty and illegal under California law. I can't opine on
Federal law, because the telcos may have slipped something by
Congress or the FCC to give the OK to such fees. It's not much,
$175, but anything is too much. I suppose that if you challenged a
telco on the point by refusing to pay it, they'd try something like
Hi-jacking your phone number if you moved carriers, seizing the
charge card you used to pay, etc. Verizon did just that to me once
when I had a dispute and had paid our state's PUC, as you have a
right to do in California. Verizon treated it as a non-pay and
refused to give me the service for the new phone I was buying. Big
hassle.

I also tried looking online at AT&T's service agreement. Now, I'm an
insurance lawyer and used to reading complicated written documents.
But, I have to say that I've never seen such garbage. Insurance
underwriters have gone to extraordinary lengths to simplify their
contracts. The AT&T agreement was written in the worst legalese,
convoluted and run-on sentences, little if any organization, and of
course entirely one-sided in favor of you-know-who. Basically, you
can't do anything with the phone except what they approve, plus pay
the bill for whatever they say.

My Verizon contract term is up, and I'll probably move to the iPhone
despite what I'm told is the crappy AT&T network. My Treo 650 is
long in the tooth, and even a refurb would wind up costing a few
hundred dollars.

For my trip to Italy next month, I'll probably just rent a phone-only
or buy one of the prepaid types. The trip is a vacation to celebrate
our marriage, and Email can wait -- I take this MacBookPro and can
get Email at most hotels, even the convents we'll be staying at.

Take care everyone, and have a great weekend.


Dave Clark
http://home.earthlink.net/~dc1999/
http://web.mac.com/dave28c
http://www.clarklawfirm.com

David Clark wrote:
> I called Verizon and asked them to send me a copy of the actual
> contract I'd signed. They could not do it electronically. First, I
> was told they had to send me a copy by snail mail. Then, when it
> arrived, it was obviously NOT the contract, but some kind of
> summary. Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view), we'd
> kept a copy at my office of what I'd signed in September 2005.
> Indeed, it does specify an early termination fee or charge (I forget
> the verbiage), which in both my personal and legal opinion, is a flat-
> out penalty and illegal under California law. I can't opine on
> Federal law, because the telcos may have slipped something by
> Congress or the FCC to give the OK to such fees. It's not much,
> $175, but anything is too much. I suppose that if you challenged a
> telco on the point by refusing to pay it, they'd try something like
> Hi-jacking your phone number if you moved carriers, seizing the
> charge card you used to pay, etc. Verizon did just that to me once
> when I had a dispute and had paid our state's PUC, as you have a
> right to do in California. Verizon treated it as a non-pay and
> refused to give me the service for the new phone I was buying. Big
> hassle.

A one sided termination fee is usually against most laws. But with the Cell carriers they tend to give you a discount on the phone so in consideration for the discount you agree to not terminate early without a penalty. Basically I got 4 $250 cell phones for $30 each but agreed to a $200 termination penalty for each line when I "re-upped" with Sprint.

Now with the iPhone and no such discounts, so that would be a different situation.

David

On Sep 8, 2007, at 6:03 AM, David Clark wrote:

> Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view), we'd
> kept a copy at my office of what I'd signed in September 2005.
> Indeed, it does specify an early termination fee or charge (I forget
> the verbiage), which in both my personal and legal opinion, is a flat-
> out penalty and illegal under California law.

The alleged logic of the early termination fee is that the contract
term keeps you with the carrier long enough for the overcharges for
the connectivity to cover the upfront subsidy of the hardware by the
carrier. If it were REALLY that, the penalty would be on a sliding
scale, wouldn't it.

(My Vonage early termination was on a sliding scale--now over--and
was to cover the "free" Vonage/Linksys router.)

Another thing to watch out for is that almost anything you do to your
account after the first few days starts a new two year contract
term. I avoided that, so my Verizon contract actually did end after
two years (their goal is that they never end, hence the free new
phone yearly sorts of deals).

The AT&T (actually still Cingular in my copy) contract certainly *is*
a mess (deliberately). And I have no intention of going overseas
with the phone. But *still* I noticed the international roaming
price points. (Which will likely cause the phone to stay in the car
trunk on trips across to Victoria--more important is to try to note
when iPhone has roamed onto Rogers along the south shore of the
Strait (of the Greek guy Juan de Fuca), as my AT&T (pre-Cingular)
phone liked to do--I think AT&T has built out enough since then to
avoid that, but I am sensitized to it.

   --John

On Sep 8, 2007, at 1:14 PM, johnbaxterlistsmac.com wrote:

> Another thing to watch out for is that almost anything you do to your
> account after the first few days starts a new two year contract
> term. I avoided that, so my Verizon contract actually did end after
> two years (their goal is that they never end, hence the free new
> phone yearly sorts of deals).

This is NOT the case with AT&T (as far as I know)--the (rather
knowledgeable) salesperson I talked to told me the following (if I
remember it all correctly):

1) With AT&T, you can change your plan at any time during the
contract period and it will NOT extend your contract. For example:
About a week before our contract was about to expire, we changed our
plan to a lower-priced, higher-minute plan that replaced the two-year-
old plan we had joined into (why AT&T didn't automatically place us
in that plan is an excellent question, but I digress). Our contract
still expired a week later (I just double-checked, our contract HAS
expired says the AT&T website).
2) AT&T contracts are on a per-line basis; meaning that on a family
(shared-minute) plan, some users can be under a contract while others
are not (and could leave at any time as long as the contracted-users
stayed with an AT&T plan).
3) The only reason for a current AT&T member (with an expired
contract) to sign a new contract is to get a phone discount, there
are no other benefits.
4) They will NOT sell SIM cards / phones without at least a one-year
contract (besides prepaid, of course).

Also, make sure to check for service/phone discounts with your work/
school email address!
<https://www.wireless.att.com/business/authenticate/?_requestid=18778>

Max

I've read many posts here and identify with the concerns raised. While I agree that caveat emptor should be observed, there is an inherent flaw with the iPhone internet/data service that can cause hundreds, in my case thousands of unwanted, unapproved charges.

Despite having unlimited domestic data usage, being able to use wifi on your cell phone is an awesome option that allows faster surfing and avoidance of the ridiculous international data rates. Herein lies the problem. While using wifi, the phone can and does frequently switch to GPRS without consent, request or any form of acknowledgment from the user. I appreciate all the technology built into the iPhone. I don't appreciate the charges incurred as a result of data usage I did not intend to incur. An "off/on" selection for GPRS or a simple pop up warning when the phone switches from wifi to GPRS would do the trick.

I'm not ignorant to the high cost of international charges and I don't believe all cell companies to be evil. I believe that users should not be charged for a phone that switches from a non-cost incurring service to a cost-bearing service without acknowledgement.

Attempts to resolve this issue were met with hostility and stone walling. I've been with AT&T wireless for over 8 years. My loyalty was disregarded as well as my best attempts at reasoning. Unfortunately for AT&T, I work for a law firm. We are currently preparing to file a class action suit.

I believe that many are affected by this flaw/oversight by Apple and AT&T. If you would like to share your story, please feel free to contact me.

Ryan Rehkopf Chambers & Associates nayr_78701yahoo.com

On Oct 4, 2007, at 4:49 AM, Ryan R. wrote:

> Despite having unlimited domestic data usage, being able to use
> wifi on your cell phone is an awesome option that allows faster
> surfing and avoidance of the ridiculous international data rates.
> Herein lies the problem. While using wifi, the phone can and does
> frequently switch to GPRS without consent, request or any form of
> acknowledgment from the user. I appreciate all the technology built
> into the iPhone. I don't appreciate the charges incurred as a
> result of data usage I did not intend to incur. An "off/on"
> selection for GPRS or a simple pop up warning when the phone
> switches from wifi to GPRS would do the trick.

I believe that recently released software update (1.1.1) has
implemented such a switch.

Alan Forkosh Oakland, CA
aforkoshmac.com

Ryan R. on 10/4/07 wrote something to the effect of:

>I don't appreciate the charges incurred as a result of
>data usage I did not intend to incur. An "off/on"
>selection for GPRS or a simple pop up warning when the
>phone switches from wifi to GPRS would do the trick.

Apple has already addressed this with the iPhone 1.1.1 update: it adds a
way to turn off the celluar data network if you prefer and only have
WiFi as your network. (It's buried in the Settings > General > Network
but there is the option now, so just it off before traveling out of the
USA and you won't have any data roaming charges.)

-- Marc