I need answers please (iphone international rates)

[SheepdogMama]

Hi all -- I am new to this forum and thank you in advance for the answers I will need now and in the upcoming weeks...I am planning on buying the new iphone friday and am going to need help I am sure so thanks a bunch..

My question is this -- if I take the iphone to, lets just say, jamaica for vacation -- what do i do about making calls... I read somewhere here about the consumers such as us not even being able to check our voicemail without getting hit with the high fees.. so whats the story on all this -- if anyone here can help I would greatly appreciate it -- someone said something about a sim card -- to be honest (and please dont laugh at me) I dont know what that even is...I want to be able to use the poop out of this new phone --I have waited since iphone first came out to be able to afford it and now I have made the sacrfice of giving up my home phone in order to have it all make sence for a "phone bill" to be the price its gonna be for the next 2 years -- so with this all said can anyone shed some ansdwers or facts for me so I know what to do and dont trip up myself..

Thanks AGAIN and again
Francine (aka SheepdogMama)

[baseballboy828]

Standard international rates apply, which according to AT&T's site is $1.99/minute for Jamaica. Visual voicemail uses EDGE, which would be potentially very expensive internationally. The SIM card is the card in the phone that holds the information about the phone and allows it to connect to AT&T's network. You can buy prepaid SIM cards in the Jamaica and swap the prepaid one out for the iPhone SIM card. That is, if the 3G is not SIM-locked to AT&T, which it most likely will be. That means you're out of luck in that regard. You'll just have to pay international roaming rates in whatever country you're in. I'd recommend turning off EDGE/3G when you leave the country and solely relying on WiFi to avoid huge bills. (Many people in the early months of the 1st iPhone got bills for several thousand dollars. AT&T gave them a break, but you may not be so lucky.)

[SheepdogMama]

thanx baseballboy -- I will see about the sim thing but you r more than likely correct in it being locked and I will more than likely do what I did last year -- get to jamaica and rent a cell for the week for 40 bucks -- or just get a phone card and use local phones while there... why do they make it so difficult -- yes because they can -- i knew the answer to that before i typed it..

do you know will I be able to use the email and web browsing though while out of country??? I will check with ATT on all of this 10 times before my trip but if you know I'd love the heads up.....thanks F

[notabadname]

AT&T does have calling plans for travelers that will save you a little bit (about 15%). If you pay a $5.99/month fee for the "AT&T® World Traveler" plan, you will save 30 cents per minute ($1.69 versus &1.99). It would take about 20 minutes of calling to break even on the $5.99 investment, but it is a way to save if you expect to make more than 20 minutes of calls. You can turn this plan on for as many or as few months as you want (I have used it myself). You don't have to sign on to this as part of your 2 year contract. So activate when you plan to travel out of country, cancel on your return until your next travels if greater than a month. Text messages are 50 cents per message.

[notabadname]

AT&T has an international plan for that too. Direct off their site for the iPhone:

While using data on iPhone (either voice or data usage, including data usage incurred from delivery of Visual Voicemail messages+) is unlimited within the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, international data roaming can get expensive quickly as international roaming rates apply. Consider that opening an email with a 5 megapixel picture in it, or downloading a 3 minute video on YouTube each takes about 2MB of data. That's why AT&T has created two Data Global Plans for iPhones with lower rates in 41 countries*.
There are two packages available:

$24.99/month: 20MB Data Global Plan gives you 20MB** of usage within 41 countries*
$59.99/month: 50MB Data Global Plan gives you 50MB*** of usage within 41 countries*

As long as you don't download videos, standard text e-mails are measured in Kbs. So you could use the $24.99 plan for e-mail if you avoided sending photos, etc.

[SheepdogMama]

Thank you - thank you- thank you for all the great info and help -- I dont think I will be taking the iphone with me out of the country come to think of it becasue I dont like to get hit with highway robbery for stuff that shoudlnt be treated as such....

[baseballboy828]

International data roaming without a plan is charged at $.0195/KB (Kilobytes=KB, Kilobits=Kb. There are 8 bits in a byte, therefore a kilobyte is eight times the size of a kilobit.). Lets say you used 20MB, the full amount of the cheapest plan. That's $390. This is how people got slammed when the iPhone first came out. They'd buy it, go to another country for a month and used 200-400MB of data. 400MB of data roaming is an extra $7800 onto your bill. Ouch.