cell phone while cruising

[theDangerz]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"But I can assure you that at least in the continental US, at least some of TMob's plans very much do allow tethering if the phone itself supports it.(sigh)

"at least in the continental US"... Everything i have described here has been outside of "the continental US".

Maybe i'm on the wrong page.. but i thought thought the entire point of this thread was to discuss cell phones and coverage while cruising, which I also assumed meant primarily outside of the continental US.

[hellosailor]

I have no confusion about that. I'm speaking of T-Mobile's policy on tethering, and their equipment problems with tethering, for US customers. Those policies and problems will very probably persist, regardless of whether the customer remains in the US or travels to other places. If there are further restrictions on tethering when abroad, T-Mobile, as usual, doesn't tell anyone about them.

A friend of mine, also a US TMob customer, recently went to Brazil and before he went, he confirmed that he could make free voice calls there, paying only for data if he used it. He went over how to disable data with the service rep. And after he got to Brazil...found that he was still being billed for data services because of the way they were forwarding text messages--without his knowledge and despite their statement that the services he was using would be free.

Where you use the phone, is almost irrelevant compared to where your service is based, because that's the over riding factor in how the plan will be governed. Even in the rare event that the rep knows more than what they see in a binder.

[Checkswrecks]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

...
A friend of mine, also a US TMob customer, recently went to Brazil and before he went, he confirmed that he could make free voice calls there, paying only for data if he used it. He went over how to disable data with the service rep. And after he got to Brazil...found that he was still being billed for data services because of the way they were forwarding text messages--without his knowledge and despite their statement that the services he was using would be free.
...

I had a similar problem with a US iPhone on Verizon in Norway. I definitely had turned off data and was wifi only. Till it wasn't and I have no idea what changed but we got home and there was a $500 bill for 2 days. Fortunately it was a work phone and my employer has a big enough contract that Verizon removed the charge.

[john61ct]

Best to just get local SIM if possible, almost everywhere is cheaper than in the US.

Dealing with "international roaming" always risks these issues, even the billing provider can't keep up with the hundreds of constantly changing foreign tower-owning providers.