Contact us if you have any questions regarding international traveling or anything else pertaining to wireless.

Ben
ben@wirelessiqllc.com
www.wirelessiqllc.com

Prerequisites:

Generally, you must be a customer of AT&T mobility for at least three months before they will enable your phone to travel internationally. They may make an exception based on your credit history. You can check on this by calling AT&T’s international customer service number directly at (916) 843-4685.

Calling plan:

Once you have international roaming enabled on your AT&T account, you will be provisioned to have AT&T Standard International Roaming. This is a per minute rate for every call made and received. The rate varies by country.

You can receive a discounted international roaming rate by signing up for the World Traveler roaming feature. This package is $5.99 per month added to your cell phone bill. The feature can be added and removed without penalty. Most people add this feature before they leave the country and remove it when they get back. ***I would recommend that you leave the feature on until you receive bills from AT&T covering charges the entire time you were abroad. I have heard of AT&T customers removing the feature the day they get back and were charged the standard rate. Sometimes it can take up to two billing cycles to collect the usage data from foreign wireless carriers.

If you are going to Canada, you can get $.59 per minute calling for $3.99 per month, and if you are traveling to Mexico, you can get $.59 calling for $4.99 per month.

A list of the standard and discounted rates by country/cruise ship can be found here.

Equipment:

Most cell phones that AT&T provide are quad-band. This means that they operate on four frequencies: 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, and 1900Mhz. Here in the U.S., AT&T operates mainly on 850MHz and some 1900Mhz. While international, the frequency varies by the wireless provider. On AT&T’s website, after you select the country you are traveling to, click details. This will open a popup window displaying the frequencies available in that country.

To make sure your phone is capable of using these frequencies, go to PhoneScoop and enter your phone model. It will list all of the frequencies for your cell phone.

AT&T also recommends that you have a 3G SIM card. I’m not quite sure the reasoning for this unless you are traveling to Japan or South Korea.

Japan and South Korea operate on the 2100MHz band. AT&T does not provide a cellphone that can use this frequency. There are some AT&T devices that can be used in Japan. You can also rent equipment in Japan or from Cellhire.com.

Data:

For most people, the above information will be enough to get by making and receiving cell phone calls abroad. Others using BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Windows Mobile, iPhones, or Laptop Connect cards may have concerns about data charges while abroad.

First off, sent text messages are a flat rate of $.50 per message sent and multimedia messages are $1.30 per message sent. Received messages are billed according to whichever domestic text message package you have.

BlackBerry has an unlimited international data package that is $64.99 per month. This gives you BES and BIS access in over 140 countries, making it the best data option for AT&T customers. You can even combine the World Traveler package mentioned above and pay a total of $69.99 per month. It can also be added and removed without any penalty. There seems to be conflicting information regarding the ability to freely add or remove the international BlackBerry data package.  AT&T’s website only specifies that agreement for using Laptop Connect while abroad.  I called international customer service and they said that it is a one year agreement.  The rep then stated that since I have a business account, the early termination fee may be waived.  In my experience, I have seen many cases in which the international BlackBerry service was able to be added and removed freely.  Please note that the information provided by Wireless I.Q. is correct to the best of our knowledge and we are not liable for any misinformation.

Smartphones, PDAs, and iPhones have a limited amount of data in their international plans. For $24.99 per month these users receive 20MB of data in only 41 countries, listed here. Once you go over that, it is $.005 per KB (kilobyte). If you are an iPhone user, you can select at 50MB data plan for $59.99 with the same overage charges. These overage charges can add up very quickly. On their site, they list $.005 per KB being about $5 per MB, if that gives you an idea. A great tip is to set your email to not check automatically while you are abroad.

Make sure you will be traveling in the list of 41 countries, otherwise it is $.0195 per KB to use data.

*I would not recommend attempting to tether your cell phone to your laptop for internet access while traveling abroad.

Laptop connect subscribers can use up to 100MB of data while roaming in the same 41 countries as PDAs, Smartphones, and iPhones. This service is 139.99 per month and the user must agree to a one year agreement. If you only travel to Mexico and Canada, you can get it for 109.99 but the same one year agreement applies. Because of the one year term, this option is usually used by frequent international travelers.

Troubleshooting

Once you arrive to your destination, it is recommended that you turn your phone off then back on to get signal from the carrier. I take it one step further by removing my battery completely, waiting about 10 seconds, then reinsert the batter. Once the phone powers back on, it usually picks up the signal quickly.

If you still have trouble, you want to call AT&T’s international customer service team at +1(916) 843-4685. They will be able to further troubleshoot any issue. If your phone is not working, you may have to call from a landline. Make sure to keep details of the cost of this call. I was able to receive credit on my cell phone bill for making calls to that number when my phone was not working.

To dial back to the U.S. make sure you dial + 1 (area code) (phone number). You can get a + on most regular cell phones by pressing and holding 0. PDAs and BlackBerry devices will be a little different. In most cases, you will press the shift key, then the corresponding button with the +. Consult your owner’s guide if that does not work.

To call any other country, you will need to know the country code. Dial + (country code) (phone number), depending on the format used by that country.

Links:

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/international-roaming.jsp

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/affordable-world-packages.jsp

http://www.cellhire.com/att/index.htm