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Going to England next week

H

hingyfan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2009
25
0
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007...travelers/?scp=1&sq=iphone overseas&st=Search

Anyone know exactly what I have to do to avoid the horror shows as detailed on above page?
EVeryone has something different to stay. I need a phone and hopefully email because we are meeting up with my niece who is just starting school and does have her contact info yet.
And we will be "roaming" ourselves, hitting the countryside before pulling into London for the meet-up.
This is all disheartening.
 
hingyfan said:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007...travelers/?scp=1&sq=iphone overseas&st=Search

Anyone know exactly what I have to do to avoid the horror shows as detailed on above page?
EVeryone has something different to stay. I need a phone and hopefully email because we are meeting up with my niece who is just starting school and does have her contact info yet.
And we will be "roaming" ourselves, hitting the countryside before pulling into London for the meet-up.
This is all disheartening.
Click to expand...

Are you still running 2.2.1 on your iPhone? If so, you could perhaps order a Rebel SIM online, although shipping will cost a bomb to the US. This will help you avoid jailbreaking your ATT locked iPhone (I assume). Then insert your O2 Sim (I recommend O2 as they are the official carrier of the iPhone here). Although there are better networks than O2, i wouldn't want to confuse you and cause hassle :)

However, that said, you might want to pick up a 3-UK Sim card for your iPhone and top up £5 giving you 150mb of Data for free. Although you'll have to find 3-UK's APN settings to gain access to their network.
 
Mate, in a city like London, there are open Wi-Fi places EVERYWHERE. I can pretty much put cash on the fact that you will come across at least 14,000 open routers, especially in built up housing areas!!! I like in the UK, go to London quite a lot. Simples.
 
If you don't want to jailbreak and unlock, and don't want to restrict yourself to just WiFi usage, there are options. Those options cost money, but at least it won't be anywhere near $5 grand.

AT&T has international packages:

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

World Travaler is $5.99 for the month and drops the price of a roaming call in the UK From $1.29 a minute to $.99 a minute. Yeah, it's still pretty pricey to make and receive calls. But if you're gonna have the iPhone with you and it's going to be connected to the cell network there, I would definitely get this add-on.

Then there's the International data roaming packages. $24.99 (on top of your regular $30 data plan) gets you 20MB of international data, with overage at $0.005/KB. That's compared to $.0195/KB without the plan. There's also 50MB for $59.99, 100MB for 119.99 and 200MB for $199.99.

Again, not cheap. But not horrifyingly-huge compared to the multithousand dollar bill horror stories we've seen.
 
Going to Cornwall (i dont know why) and other places. Lot of driving. The problem is meeting up with niece in London at end of trip.
I think we've decided to make do with internet cafes and payphones and leave the iphones at home. And i was looking forward to using it as a GPS over there.
I was hit with a $600 data charge from my previous carrier (before iphone) because i didnt understand the contract. I was never warned it could happen, probably because that's the way they make their money.
I dont understand this either. I just know im not paying $100 to make two calls while being left open to much more because something was roaming.
 
hingyfan said:
Going to Cornwall (i dont know why) and other places. Lot of driving. The problem is meeting up with niece in London at end of trip.
I think we've decided to make do with internet cafes and payphones and leave the iphones at home. And i was looking forward to using it as a GPS over there.
I was hit with a $600 data charge from my previous carrier (before iphone) because i didnt understand the contract. I was never warned it could happen, probably because that's the way they make their money.
I dont understand this either. I just know im not paying $100 to make two calls while being left open to much more because something was roaming.
Click to expand...

Provided you buy one of the navigation apps, such as Co-Pilot, you could still use your iPhone for navigation by switching it to Airplane mode surely?

Either way, if you want it with you I'd recommend jailbreaking to unlock and then using an O2 Simplicity Sim as you'd get lots of minutes and texts, plus unlimited Internet for about £19.
 
hingyfan said:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007...travelers/?scp=1&sq=iphone overseas&st=Search

Anyone know exactly what I have to do to avoid the horror shows as detailed on above page?
EVeryone has something different to stay. I need a phone and hopefully email because we are meeting up with my niece who is just starting school and does have her contact info yet.
And we will be "roaming" ourselves, hitting the countryside before pulling into London for the meet-up.
This is all disheartening.
Click to expand...

Turning Data Roaming off if you haven't.
 
hingyfan said:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007...travelers/?scp=1&sq=iphone overseas&st=Search

Anyone know exactly what I have to do to avoid the horror shows as detailed on above page?
EVeryone has something different to stay. I need a phone and hopefully email because we are meeting up with my niece who is just starting school and does have her contact info yet.
And we will be "roaming" ourselves, hitting the countryside before pulling into London for the meet-up.
This is all disheartening.
Click to expand...

That article is 2 years old :eek:. There was no option to turn data roaming off back then.

Turn the data roaming off and you will have no issues. Its always nice to have a cell phone when traveling in case of emergencies.
 
Above all, MONITOR YOUR USAGE. I spent a week in the US and ended up with an $80 roaming bill, which was a bit higher than I expected it to be (about half of that was data). I believe that iPhones have a usage meter in the settings somewhere, so keep track of it.
 
This seems like a sensible answer from Pogue site. But is he missing any details?
(THanks for answers, they've been very good.)




Reading this set of comments, it seems that not only may I have been one of the first person to use the iPhone abroad, I was also able to use it successfully. I bought it on the Friday it came out, and brought it with me on a two week trip to Ireland and the UK the following day.

As a frequent traveler, I’m aware of the excessive roaming costs for data usage, and checked the prices with AT&T before I left. So I kept it in Airplane mode almost the whole time except when I wanted to make a call or pick up voicemails. For data, I turned it on primarily when I was in a Wi-Fi hotspot, of which there are many free ones now in Ireland, thanks to the Celtic Tiger, and occasionally when I was an Edge-only environment to show it to to suitably impressed friends and family (and to enjoy the whisper over my shoulder of one onlooker who said, “My God, yer man has the iPhone.”) Even so, I was expecting a $100 bill or so, but it ended up being only about $20 extra for data usage.

So per Ira’s question, it’s really easy to keep the data function switched off most of the time and to turn it on only in a Wi-Fi area, and then to have it on for hours on end without charge.

I do hope that these ridiculous data roaming rates are changed, but in the meantime, it’s not too hard to use the phone overseas and to have fun while doing so.

PS By the end of the trip, my 2-year-old nephew was asking for the iPhone every time he saw me.

Bon voyage

— Patrick M

Do you keep the phone off as well as turning off data roaming and putting it in the airplane mode.
THanks.
 
I live in London and can assure you that there are thousands of free wifi hotspots around.

Every Macdonalds has free wifi and there is also Starbucks and a chain of pubs called Weatherspoons which all have free wifi.

keep data roaming switched off, use your GPS and wifi and if you do need to make a call keep it short...

Hope this helps. :):)

hingyfan said:
Do you keep the phone off as well as turning off data roaming and putting it in the airplane mode.
THanks.
Click to expand...

Go into settings>Network> and make sure data roaming is off. :):)
 
londonmystery said:
Yes, you just won't receive calls or sms messages unless you switch on data roaming. with data roaming off your iphone will be like an ipod touch with GPS. Kind of. lol :):)
Click to expand...


Are you sure about that, as i live in England but work in Holland, so have data roaming turned off all the time, yet i can still make/ receive calls & SMS whilst i'm there? Although for every 1 SMS i send they take 4 from my free allowance.

I can't send MMS however, and can only sometimes receive them (not all the time, only a few have got through, most arrive as i switch the phone back on getting off the plane, lol)


Unless this rule only applies for UK -> Continent travels, not US -> UK?
 
Calls and texts are not considered data. You will still be able to use them with data turned off.
 
I have just come back after a month in the UK. Luckily my Ozzy iphone is unlocked.

I put in an O2 pay and go with a free unlimited internet bolt on. It only cost 10 pounds! I put on another 20 pounds worth of calls but my 3GS made my holiday.

It was so so useful. Google maps were brilliant for driving directions, especially the traffic display. Showed every delay on the motorways so you could avoid them.

The video and camera were brillian too- shots over 20 hrs of video
 
londonmystery said:
I live in London and can assure you that there are thousands of free wifi hotspots around.

Every Macdonalds has free wifi and there is also Starbucks and a chain of pubs called Weatherspoons which all have free wifi.

keep data roaming switched off, use your GPS and wifi and if you do need to make a call keep it short...

Hope this helps. :):)
Click to expand...

Starbucks (and I think Weatherspoons off the top of my head) wifi hotspots wouldn't be free to a US tourist. They're BT Openzone hotspots, which are included for free in the O2 iPhone tariff, but you have to pay for if your iPhone has a non-O2 sim-card in it.

Phazer
 
The Phazer said:
Starbucks (and I think Weatherspoons off the top of my head) wifi hotspots wouldn't be free to a US tourist. They're BT Openzone hotspots, which are included for free in the O2 iPhone tariff, but you have to pay for if your iPhone has a non-O2 sim-card in it.

Phazer
Click to expand...

That's true. The Starbucks near me is BT Openzone as are many other coffee shops and pub chains. There are however many smaller pubs that just use regular old routers with security. Generally how it works is you buy a drink and then they give you the passkey.

I'm not sure about the rest of the country but in London a chain of coffee/sandwich shops called Pret-a-manger have free Wi-Fi. You don't even have to buy a drink. I tend to stand outside one of them if I need to download a new podcast episode whilst away from my computer :p
 
hingyfan said:
Going to Cornwall (i dont know why) and other places.
Click to expand...

I live in Cornwall, and 3 (followed by T-Mobile) are the only networks to be on if you want anything resembling any sort of 3G coverage. It's still splotchy compared to GSM but better than any of the others.
 
This has gotten worse overnight. McDonalds and Starbucks are no longer my friends and I can't use GPS. And i'm still worried data is going to find a way to creep into my phone and use up my nonexistent life savings.
 
hingyfan said:
This has gotten worse overnight. McDonalds and Starbucks are no longer my friends and I can't use GPS. And i'm still worried data is going to find a way to creep into my phone and use up my nonexistent life savings.
Click to expand...

Not completely true. There may still be hope. :) You can use GPS without a data plan, providing you have downloaded the TomTom or Co-Pilot Apps for the UK on the App store. But, condsidering the cost this is not an option.

However, you might want to poke around here as you could simply sign your iPhone up as an iPod Touch. Now McDonalds and all Cloud Wi-Fi spots are your friends ;).

The news page is here. You can sign up online, and best of all there is no minimum term contract required. And at £3.99 ($6.52) for a whole month its a pretty good deal.

EDIT: Found the subscription page http://www.thecloud.net/ipod-touch , its not looking good. It says you must specify your MAC address, and it may catch out iPhone MAC addresses. Will just check and keep you posted.

EDIT 2 :) : Found the first 6 digits of my MAC address on the site, so there is hope after all. Though my iPhone 3G is a UK one and that could make a difference for those using foreign iPhones.

EDIT 3 :): Posts 8 & 9 on this thread seem to crush all hope again. However you need to take a look and compare your MAC address. However if you can't use the iPod touch subscription you could just sign you iphone up as an "other" device as normal and pay the £6.99 ($11.42). Look here.
 
I'm thinking now of using the ATT data plans. Any idea what these numbers mean in actual usuage:
# $24.99/month: 20 MB Data Global Add-On gives you 20 MB of usage within over 90 countries
# $59.99/month: 50 MB Data Global Add-On gives you 50 MB of usage within over 90 countries.
 
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