Mythbusters' Adam Savage Discovers Insane Roaming Fees: $11,000 iPhone Bill For A Few Hours Surfing

from the BUSTED dept

Every few months or so there's an article somewhere about an insane phone bill that someone gets because they took their phone out of the country without recognizing the insanity that is international roaming rates. This time, it appears to be Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage, who's been doing a bit of traveling lately. He was recently up in Canada, and used his iPhone to do a little web surfing. And now he got the bill. Apparently AT&T wants somewhere around $11,000 for Adam's surfing and have turned off his phone until he pays. Now there will be some who say that he should have read the fine print, but considering just how often these sorts of stories pop up, at some point it's worth noting that the fine print isn't working. And... even if you grant the "fine print" premise, it's hard for anyone to figure out how these international roaming rates make any sense whatsoever. They're so far off the charts as to be unbelievable.

Anyway... next week on Mythbusters... the insanity of mobile phone bills? Can we see Jamie and Adam try to decipher hidden fees, while Grant, Tory and Kari search for the elusive accurate mobile phone coverage map? Maybe Buster can figure out what the real limits are on unlimited data plans? Hmm... maybe not.

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European Parliament Committee Backs Further Hack Of Roaming Charges

from the the-answer-is-always-more-regulation dept

The European Union has been interfering in the market for international mobile-phone roaming rates for some, taking the populist position that the charges were too high, and forcing caps on the wholesale rates operators charge each other, hoping to drag down retail prices. But the effect was, as we predicted, baloon squeezing: while intra-Europe roaming rates fell, operators looked to boost rates paid by people from outside Europe and their domestic rates. What makes this situation particularly ridiculous is that it was one manufactured by the EU itself. When Vodafone expanded across the continent by buying German operator Mannesmann in 2000, it was essentially prevented by EU regulators from introducing any roaming products that utilized its competitive advantage. The regulators said that if Vodafone cut any of its international roaming prices, it would have to offer the same price to its rivals -- removing any motivation for the operator to cut prices and introduce new services.

The EU continues to try to regulate itself out of this self-created mess, the latest move being that a European Parliament committee has voted to further cap roaming charges on text messages and mobile data. The plan moves forward to the whole Parliament, and will be considered on the cusp of peak travel season, so the politicans can brag to their constituents that in this time of economic misery, they're moving to cut their vacation costs. But what they're really doing is further impeding the market by removing any incentive for operators to compete with one another -- just as the EU regulators did back in 2000. This was a situation created by overzealous regulation: had the EU allowed the likes of Vodafone to create products based on its competitive advantage, it's likely the market would have brought prices down on its own, and without the balloon-squeezing effect. But once the EU began interfering, that became impossible, since it in essence outlawed competition. Interfering in the market even more may be politically useful, but won't create lasting competition that will benefit consumers in the long run.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Rogers Deliberately Disables Notifications Of Roaming Charges

from the how-customer-unfriendly-of-them dept

With the news coming out this week that mobile operator Rogers was finally bringing the iPhone to Canada, almost every Canadian comment on it had something to do with just how badly everyone expected Rogers to rip people off with the iPhone. Apparently, Rogers has quite a reputation -- and it appears to be well deserved. Rob Hyndman points us to a story about the ridiculous roaming charges for those who use a Rogers device outside of Canada. Ridiculously high roaming charges are nothing new, of course. They happen to everyone, unfortunately. What's stunning, though, is that the reporter gets a guy at Rogers to admit that the company demands that all of the mobile devices it offers disable any feature that lets you see how much you've racked up in roaming charges. In other words, they know they're ripping you off -- and they want to make sure you don't realize by how much until it's too late.

If ever there were a short-term strategy, this would be it. This decision most likely "gets" some travelers the first time around (as it got the reporter in the article). However, it then pisses off those users such that they'll never use Rogers mobile phones out of the country ever again. In fact, I'd bet that many start looking at other options entirely. It seems like a plan designed to drive away customers, just for a short one-time ridiculously high charge. There are certainly companies out there that believe an informed customer is a bad customer, but those companies will often find that's not a particularly good plan to stay in business over the long term.

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The Underground iPhone Users Of Vermont Trying To Hide From AT&T

from the how-dare-these-people-want-to-give-us-money dept

It's no secret that Apple's new iPhone is quite popular across the nation, with competitors everywhere trying to figure out how to respond. There certainly have been some complaints about some of the limitations imposed by the iPhone, but people everywhere are trying to find workarounds. Tech.Blorge alerts us to the fact that a bunch of iPhone users in Vermont have had to go virtually underground to get and use iPhones. The problem, apparently, is that since AT&T has an exclusive deal to offer the iPhone, they don't want people using it primarily on roaming networks. Right now, you cannot get AT&T wireless service in Vermont -- and AT&T's contract threatens to cut off anyone who buys or uses an iPhone there. Of course, that's not going to stop some people, who are ordering iPhones from elsewhere and even setting up P.O. Boxes out of state where the 300 page iPhone bills can be sent. They know that they're risking being cut off but they just can't help it. For their part, AT&T insists that they will cut off anyone they find who lives in an area not served by AT&T wireless (which is actually a fairly large area), or anyone who uses more than 40% of their iPhone time on roaming networks. This, of course, is a bit ridiculous. These people want to pay money. They're happy customers or both Apple and AT&T -- and the company wants to cut them off. If expense is the problem, they should just charge them more for roaming, but cutting them off completely in the name of an exclusivity contract doesn't make any sense. It makes the iPhone and wireless service from AT&T less valuable, which is exactly the opposite of what the exclusivity clause was supposed to do.

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