MythBuster uses Twitter to fight $11,000 phone bill

[FanIn80]

http://www.canada.com/news/MythBuste...348/story.html

Savage and his wife were in Montreal for a five-day vacation earlier this month.

Not liking that disconnected feeling, he used a mobile modem — a thumb-sized device that plugs into a USB port on a laptop — from his U.S.-based AT&T carrier to connect to the Internet in Montreal.

On Friday, after he returned back to the United States, he discovered his cellphone had stopped working. When he called AT&T to find out the problem, his jaw dropped.

He was slapped with an $11,000 bill for data usage during his five-day stay in La Belle Province. With his Canadian roaming rates at $0.015 per kilobyte, he would have had to use about 750,000 kilobytes — or about 750 megabytes — worth of data transfers.

Crazy!

...but, even more concerning, is this tidbit:

In Canada, the large cellphone companies charge pay-per-use texters 15 cents to send a text message and, beginning next month, Rogers Communications Inc. will join Bell Canada and Telus Corp. with an additional charge of 15 cents to receive a text message.

[burn_this_city]

The actual cost for sending a text 0.03 cents.

[Russic]

In Canada, the large cellphone companies charge pay-per-use texters 15 cents to send a text message and, beginning next month, Rogers Communications Inc. will join Bell Canada and Telus Corp. with an additional charge of 15 cents to receive a text message.

I'm going to make the assumption that that rule applies to only people without a plan that includes texting?

[Cliche]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

http://www.canada.com/news/MythBuste...348/story.html


Crazy!

...but, even more concerning, is this tidbit:

Well, we do have Oligarchies for our digital providers, and according to a strict monopolist sense, they should try to line their own and shareholders pockets with money. Or create money-hats.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Russic

I'm going to make the assumption that that rule applies to only people without a plan that includes texting?

I'm pretty sure that's right. The $20 iPhone extras package includes unlimited sent/received text and MMS.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Russic

I'm going to make the assumption that that rule applies to only people without a plan that includes texting?

[Locke]

Holy Jesus!! That had better have been the best porn in the universe.

[ken0042]

What I don't get is why the phone companies between Canada and the US have reciprocal agreements in place? If I can get 1GB for $30 here, why do I suddenly pay 10,000 times as much for data in the States?

Even without a plan, here in Canada I pay $1/MB, and down there it is about 200-300 times that amount.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by ken0042

What I don't get is why the phone companies between Canada and the US have reciprocal agreements in place? If I can get 1GB for $30 here, why do I suddenly pay 10,000 times as much for data in the States?

Even without a plan, here in Canada I pay $1/MB, and down there it is about 200-300 times that amount.

Everyone knows it costs a lot of money to transport data across the border.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Everyone knows it costs a lot of money to transport data across the border.

Customs and all that.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by ken0042

What I don't get is why the phone companies between Canada and the US have reciprocal agreements in place? If I can get 1GB for $30 here, why do I suddenly pay 10,000 times as much for data in the States?

Even without a plan, here in Canada I pay $1/MB, and down there it is about 200-300 times that amount.

I don't know about data, but verizon has a plan in the US that eliminates roaming charges when you're in Canada. It's worked out pretty well for me as you can switch over to it for a month and then go back to the cheaper domestic plan. Apparently it's pretty popular in Detroit because people who work near the river often pick up the Canadian towers from the US side.

[FlamesKickAss]

Originally Posted by Russic

I'm going to make the assumption that that rule applies to only people without a plan that includes texting?

yep there has been a notice on my bill the last couple months. I have a plan but they still put it on there

[FlamesAddiction]

That's pretty brutal, but it is the responsibility of the consumer to know the rules before they buy the service. If you don't like the rules, then don't buy the product or service.

[Cliche]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

That's pretty brutal, but it is the responsibility of the consumer to know the rules before they buy the service. If you don't like the rules, then don't buy the product or service.

Some further investigation and it should be noted that he was grossly mis-billed? 2-3 hours of checking text (unless he was visiting those really image intensive sites) shouldn't have racked up 700mb worth of downloading.

[Azure]

Pretty sure Verizon and Telus have some sort of deal in place, but I don't know the details.

AT&T is just a garbage company, thats all.

[Bobblehead]

I got a few texts from people who had a texting plan, but I don't have a plan. They didn't think anything about it.

So currently I do not have a cell phone. Problem solved, and a pretty cheap solution.

[Bob]

International data is pretty much always a quagmire, sadly.

[CrusaderPi]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

the actual cost for sending a text 0.03 cents.

$0.03?!!?!?!

[kermitology]

Telecoms can rot in hell for charging for TEXT MESSAGES:

Srinivasan Keshav, a leading Canadian computer scientist, testified this month that the consumer mark-up on some text messages is an estimated 4,900 per cent, adding it is "very unlikely" the maximum cost of a single message exceeds 0.3 cents.

[Burninator]

I think everyone knows that using a cell phone in another country is long distance why would your mobile internet be any different?

A guy at my office did almost the same thing. Went down into the states and used his iPhone to browse the internet for almost a week. His bill was over $800.