[1st-mile-nm] Data Access Costs in Europe

[John Brown]

ATT has always unlocked all of our blackberry gsm phones with no fuss or muss


----- Original Message -----
From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org <1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org>
To: Bill at feiereisen.net <Bill at feiereisen.net>
Cc: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>
Sent: Sun Apr 24 19:24:51 2011
Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Data Access Costs in Europe

It is mainly just profiteering. I'm on T-Mobile, which is owned by Deutsch Telecom anyway. If I roam on a T-Mobile SIM or buy a local SIm card, my rates are 30% higher than they were a year ago, in dollar terms, because the dollar has fallen against the euro.  What I tend to do is use Skype and a Vonage softphone on my netbook, and call on a comparatively cheap pure wifi network instead.

But T-Mobile unblocked my phone so I can use the alien SIM! Verizon can't (in its GSM-capable worldphones) and AT&T won't.

Steve 


On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 7:57 PM, Bill Feiereisen <Bill at feiereisen.net> wrote:


I just returned from a business trip to Europe where I was faced with the exorbitant costs of data access that have (apparently) been worked out between my (two) American cell providers (AT&T and Verizon) and the local mobile companies. 

On my last trip last year my only data access, other than local wifi, was on my Verizon blackberry. At that time I could buy an international data package with unlimited data for about $20/month. 

In the meantime I have acquired an AT&T iPhone and a Verizon hotspot and was hoping to buy an equivalent plan for each, The good folks at Verizon told me that the plans changed on January 11, 2011 to limit the amount of data to the smart phone and that the costs are now astronomical. Both the phone and the hotspot are now limited to rates of about $100 for 75 MB. This is so counter productive that it hardly makes sense to buy the data access at all.

Does anyone know what has happened and why this pricing has become so punitive? Is this just a result of bad negotiations between US and the European providers?  

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