Everyone who owns a mobile phone and uses it while traveling has been dinged by high international roaming rates at least once. And some of us are getting dinged to the tune of hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. A recent article in the Canadian press described the plight of a businessman who downloaded a 19MB PowerPoint and was forced by Rogers Wireless to pay $600 in roaming rates. Another article in the American press told the story of a hapless traveler who came back to America after a trip to Mexico to discover that AT&T were charging him $5,600 in mobile roaming rates!
Mobile phones have been around for a decade or more now. Why are roaming rates still so high for North Americans traveling abroad? And how can companies like Sprint, Rogers, AT&T, Verizon and Cingular keep getting away with charging such ridiculous rates?
The answer is that there is little incentive for the big mobile network providers to offer fair and competitive roaming rates.
They know their customers are likely to continue using their regular mobile phones while abroad out of convenience, force of habit or ignorance of the high rates involved.
And there are no regulations requiring Sprint or any of the other major carriers to alert customers when they are exceeding the limits of their regular plan, or even when their data or voice transfer activities abroad are incurring charges that any sane person would never choose to pay. It is entirely up to the customer to be aware of the rates they are charged for their service.
But the carriers don’t make it easy for the customer to monitor international roaming rates. They offer dozens of different plans, packages and add-ons with complicated rules and requirements, and customers who wish to adjust their calling plans are expected to be able to predict their phone usage abroad and to request an adjusted plan far in advance of traveling. It’s an inconvenient and unwieldy system.
Worse, even major carriers like AT&T make mistakes. Some customers who called ahead to upgrade their roaming plans have still been slammed with outrageous international roaming rates in error. Unfortunately, these billing errors can be incredibly frustrating and time-consuming to resolve.
Until major changes are made in the way mobile network providers charge for their roaming service, consumers will have to find intelligent solutions to the problem of high roaming rates.
One of the easiest ways to ensure affordable coverage while traveling is to use a mobile package from Roam Mobility. Using a Roam Mobility phone while traveling ensures that you are getting the lowest roaming rates for the country you’re traveling in. You don’t have to switch networks or compare rates to get the best deals; Roam Mobility automatically connects your phone to the cheapest network available. And you get free incoming calls in 65 countries and free incoming text messages anywhere in the world.
The major mobile network providers aren’t going to change the way they do business any time soon. In the meantime, check out some of the affordable, pay-as-you-go phones and SIM cards from Roam Mobility.
