Adam Savage gets $11,000 AT&T bill for a "few hours of web surfing in Canada"
Adam Savage just twittered this: "Text messaging fees are stupid robbery? (they are), AT&T is attempting to charge me 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada."
That's why I took an inactive iPhone with me to Spain. I used WiFi and Skype on it and it cost me nothing.
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Saw that tweet, and replied with something along the lines of this:
There's a reason Canadians don't surf the web on their phones. Next time, check the rates.
Data rates in Canada on any of the cell networks are a sore point for anyone with a smart phone. No true unlimited plans, unbelievable per MB rates if you have NO data plan, and really shitty options for data plans. Remember, Rogers was chastised by Apple when the iPhone first came out here because their plans sucked so hard. If not for the Apple pressure and consumer backlash threatening to derail their iPhone plans, there wouldn't even be the $30 6GB plan available.
The joys of zero competition. Adam should have realized he was in a different country, and that its rates suck hard. Paying roaming data rates on TOP of whatever his plan is probably didn't help matters.
Rogers is probably a better target for his ire than AT&T.
In case there's anyone in the world who hasn't heard this yet:
http://verizonmath.blogspot.com
Well yes data rates are high in Canada, not that high however. Try roaming data in the United States with a Canadian phone and you will get the same result. Only this time AT&T will be the one ripping you off. International roaming charges are the shame of Telco's everywhere. I had a $3000.00 charge for data in the U.S. recently.
He later posted:
"And I got the "data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb". About to try to explain the difference to them. Sigh."
.015 cents =! "a penny and a half"
1.5 cents = "a penny and a half"
Yes the rates are higher in Canada than the US; but the real problem is the failure to understand basic math.
Hmmm, I get charged nothing for data by ATT when I roam on my blackberry in Africa. Maybe you didn't sign up for the right plan.
.015 DOLLARS= 1.5 CENTS
E=MC^pi = Existence
"There's a reason Canadians don't surf the web on their phones. Next time, check the rates."
This is kind of an outdated sentiment... 6gb for $30 is acutally almost in line with what they pay in the US. In any case, his bill is not from Rogers, it is from AT&T. AT&T sure as hell is not paying Rogers 11k for that data roaming - that's just what they charge their customers who have no data roaming package on their account. Frankly, although 11k is absurd, I am surprised that Adam did not take steps to prevent this from happening before he came to Canada... I'm not familiar with AT&T's plans, but I'm sure that they have some kind of data roaming package that would have protected Adam from this situation
Oooh. (gets out popcorn)
Having worked at an at&t call center and having had a customer be charged additional $240/year dialup data rates for an *elevator phone* they of course didn't order, I will enjoy watching every bit of how this turns out.
Hell may hath no fury like a woman scorned, but the honor of a geek
besmirched hath the power of zero divided.
I reject your data rate and substitute my own.
webmokees wins for the final line.
Dude, that is seriously small pennies. I remember this hitting the front page in Calgary in December '07, and not from AT&T, from Bell:
"Cellphone user shocked by charges of $85K"
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/12/12/cell-phone.html
Just to be dicks, let's get a group of 5th graders or whenever schools teach powers of 10 and have them prove that .015 cents is not "a penny and a half"
Carrier pigeons. You can't go wrong with carrier pigeons.
If you go to the ATT website "iPhone Travel Tips"
(http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/iphone-travel-tips.jsp) they're pretty upfront about the fact that you will be royally boned if you don't buy a roaming data plan before you go. I was rather impressed at their honesty, although I looked at this *before* I went to Canada and turned my iPhone's data roaming off... it would be nice if the iPhone emitted a shriek for every dollar spent just in case a user didn't have the foresight, and if it defaulted to Data Roaming OFF.
Text messaging costs have always been a pet peeve of mine, so I'm definitely sympathetic to Savage's complaint.
It's ridiculous how much they charge for so little data being transferred. The cost per byte is significantly higher than what they're sending across the air for a normal phone call.
They charge that high though because they can get away with it.
I've worked at their call centres before, there's something you can do here. You can call in, be polite, ask for what's called a re-rate. They'll apply a plan retroactively which will cover the charges, then ask that you stay on that plan for some indeterminate amount of time, though in practice you can call in the next day and have it removed. IIRC there's an unlimited international data plan for something like $175/mo, and I think you need to commit to it for a 12mo term, but if you do a lot of traveling it clearly pays for itself.
@14
You claim that texts cost Telcos very little money. The truth of the matter is that it costs them NOTHING.
Background: cellphones use a "protocol" to communicate with the cell towers, just like all other forms of communications. Part of this protocol is a "header" which contains where the send the data, when it was sent, what type it is, how long it is, etc, etc. These "headers" have quite a bit of "whitespace" in them, space that is simply used for padding and contains nothing but pure zeros.
Some of the packets are what are called "control" packets. A control packet is a packet that send the phone status, checks the celltower status, emits a heartbeat (so the tower knows the phone is on), etc.
The reason text messages are limited in length is because they are not sent as packets, they are sent inside the headers of control packets. These packets are sent whether you text or not and the text message is actually injected into the whitespace of the packet header, using absolutely NOT EXTRA BANDWIDTH.
It's like if you sent a letter to a family member, then wrote some more stuff to that family member on the envelope. Basically the post office is charging you extra for writing on the outside of the envelope, which has to be there anyways and would normally contain wasted, unused space.
some the commenters at consumerist are making the interesting point that his device was not was even capable of downloading 9 gigs in a few hours, it would have taken more like 12 hours.
http://consumerist.com/5303124/data-roaming-dont-try-this-on-the-att-network
@1, Astin
I am "intentionally" taking your comment out of context in order to make my point:
"Remember, Rogers was chastised by Apple when the iPhone first came out here because their plans sucked so hard. If not for the Apple pressure and consumer backlash threatening to derail their iPhone plans, there wouldn't even be the $30 6GB plan available.
The joys of zero competition. Adam should have realized ..."
My point: What makes you think *Apple* believes in competition?
Apple believes in competition insofar as it helps sell their products, period.
That is not unreasonable for a commercial company, but let's not pretend that they are saints, OK?
Bitten by the Jesus Phone. Funny, that.
Having just moved to Canadia from 'Straya, I was stunned to see how badly smartphone users are goughed by Rogers/Fido. Should just shorten the name to Rogered...
Solution? http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/2008/10/11/using-an-iphone-without-the-data-plan/
http://www.unlockit.co.nz/unlockit/
Big ups to my cozzie bro's in Aoteoroa!
Hmm that is some serious expensive web surfing bill :/
Based on the comments in this thread, I have to say:
MYTH BUSTED
http://www.theprovince.com/Technology/MythBuster+uses+Twitter+fight+phone+bill/1740557/story.html
I'm not a big fan of Rogers but I wanted an iPhone and they are the only game in town here in Canada. One good thing they did was to turn of "Data Roaming" by default in their iPhone settings. In fact the customer service agent I bought the phone from when out of his way to warm me about using the 3G connection while traveling in the states and showed me where to double check data roaming was off.
I took my iPhone around Scandinavia, Germany, France and Spain earlier this year, and for some reason all the texts and calls I made were included in my monthly allowance. That's with O2 in the UK. I expect my bill to be £45 or so, but it's been the normal £35 without interruption.