[blindkid] international roaming and your Cell Phones atConvention

Richard Holloway rholloway at gopbc.org
Sat Jun 20 19:06:12 UTC 2009


Before I cause panic with my $2.49 / minute posting from before. A  
follow-up from Sprint tells me that it is only 59 cents / minute.  
(Only? Ha ha-- still insanely expensive if you ask me...) And I have  
no idea why I was first told $2.49. Perhaps that is for European  
travel-- who knows?-- It just said "International"... I have seen this  
$2.49 rate on Sprint's web site as well buy no point in wasting more  
time on that--

I have now been told that "to help control this" [ the roaming charges  
of 59 cents / minute AND text data & charges of $2.05 per megabyte] I  
can change certain settings.

Remember that if you're calling someone else on a cell phone at the  
convention (as I do often with my wife and daughter) you could be  
billed at the roaming rate for either or BOTH of the phones in a given  
call on a roaming basis. Quite a little scam they have going on if you  
ask me...

I'm now waiting to hear what that means-- "to help control this"?  
Sounds to me like even after the setting are made I might still get  
charged extra and I'm not too keen on that. I want to LOCK OFF the  
extra charges, period.

One other thing: Do remember that (especially if you have texting- 
happy teenagers like our daughter) you could probably run up quite a  
bill from ROAMING TEXT MESSAGES as well if your phones happen to roam,  
and at least on our phones, there is a SEPARATE setting to control  
that. Apparently it is possible to lock out voice roaming while still  
texting (and sending other data) on a roaming basis (and vice-versa).  
Just something else to watch out for!

I forward all my emails to my BlackBerry. Should that begin to roam  
while I get a batch of emails, I'd be very unhappy indeed...

I'll post what I find out later.

Richard



On Jun 20, 2009, at 11:13 AM, Mike Freeman wrote:

> Yeah right! I don't have an accessible phone.
>
> Mike
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kim Cunningham" <kim at gulfimagesphoto.com>
> To: " (for parents of blind children)NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List"
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 6:10 AM
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] international roaming and your Cell Phones
> atConvention
>
>
> WOW! I am so thankful that you sent this email! I phoned Verizon and  
> was
> told that they could NOT turn off the international roaming. I was  
> also
> told that international roaming charges would be 69 cents per minute!
> They recommended that we use text messaging as we wouldn't have to  
> worry
> about this issue. Just thought I would forward the Verizon response.
> Regards,
> Kim Cunningham
>
> --- On Thu, 6/18/09, Wilson, Joanne <JWilson at nfb.org> wrote:
>
>
> From: Wilson, Joanne <JWilson at nfb.org>
> Subject: [blindkid] international roaming and your Cell Phones at
> Convention
> To: david.andrews at nfbnet.org
> Date: Thursday, June 18, 2009, 8:36 PM
>
>
>
> ----------
> From: Berggren, John
> Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 2:17 PM
> To: NCB Staff
>
> For those of you travelling to convention, you'll notice that just a
> couple hundred yards across the Detroit River is Canada, our  
> neighbor to
> the north (or in this unusual case, our neighbor to the south). Though
> you will need a passport to cross the border, your cell phone doesn't.
> Depending where you are in the hotel, your cell phone (or data card)  
> may
> give up on a weak signal from your carrier and switch to the Rogers
> Communications cell signal from Canada. This constitutes international
> roaming and can be very expensive. Unless you have a contract that
> includes it, you might consider contacting your provider to disable
> international roaming, if only for the first couple of weeks of  
> July. I
> found AT&T to be very helpful in providing assistance with my request.
> To make it a bit easier for those interested, here are contact numbers
> for the various carriers:
>
> AT&T : 611 or 800-331-0500
> Sprint : *2, press Talk or 888-211-4727
> T-Mobile : 800-937-8997
> Verizon : *611 or 800-922-0204
> Virgin Mobile : 888-322-1122
>
> Here's to no cell phone bill surprises, eh? If you supervise anyone
> without e-mail, please advise any of those attending convention.
>
> Regards,
> John
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