International Text Roaming

You can ask to have a mexico/canada roaming block added your lines. Just keep in mind the reason your connecting to the towers in mexico is they have a stronger signal in the area your in, so your phone is of course going to connect to the tower with the stronger signal. Since its a tower in mexico thats why your being charged international charges. If you add the canada/mexico roaming block, it will no longer connect to towers in mexico, and you can notice some slight degraded service. It will definitely prevent charges on your bill and having to call in every month. I would recommend you do it, but its your choice.

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@AndyBandy wrote:

She found out it's better to turn on "Airplane mode' to avoid international roaming, what a ripoff.

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Yes, if you don't have an international data plan, putting the phone in Airplane mode will prevent it from connecting to the local network and causing high charges. You can turn WiFi back on after putting it in airplane mode to continue using WiFi. 

I'm not sure why that's a ripoff. 

you have to call in everymonth unfortunately if it is a monthly reoccurring issue it may need to be escalated to the next level to resolve. this is called fringe roaming.

My wife went to India with her iphone kept 'Data Usage' in ON position and it started billing for simple text messages by charging for 'International Data', in Singapore, India. All she sent were I reached Singapore, I reached India etc., for these simple text messages, they charged $162. We are unaware that it automatically uses local companies and charges international rates rather than local rates.

Ironic is, from wherever she sent these messages, there is free WiFi available. Isn't this unfair practice to charge international rates, but not local rates. I believe this is a very bad practice. What do you guys think. Make sure to turn off 'Data Usage' when you are traveling to other countries unless you really need it.

She found out it's better to turn on "Airplane mode' to avoid international roaming, what a ripoff.

Thanks Mic,

Don't you think charging $162 for few (max 10) text messages is a ripoff without a notification? If they are really billing friendly, rather than charging international charges, if will be very helpful if they send an automated warning, 'you are using international roaming and very high rate will apply', rather than charging hundreds of dollars.

That $162 had to be for more than 10 text messages. If they were SMS texts, the charge is $0.50 per text. If you were using some other messaging system and those charges were for data, data costs $2.05 per MB without an international plan. If that was all data usage, that is approximately 80MB of data. Those 10 messages likely didn’t use that much data. There were probably other apps on the phone using data. 

possible, these messages were sent through WhatsApp, not through texting, also she must have received some other stuff which she wasn't intended to, but I guess still charges apply.

I am trying to open billing page, but it's spinning (not opening) for past few minutes, don't know why 😞

By the way I am a retiree from A&T, I never felt happy the way wireless service is being managed. At my current work place, I faces really hard to make calls, I am not in jungle though (downtown Oakland, CA) :((

Charging $162 for few simple text messages is purely a ripoff. That's more than my monthly bill.

They do this all the time. When she called using WhatsApp, it bypassed and charged for full international call and they charge $50 for 10 minutes. I used to be AT&T employee and customer for more than 10 years. They need to waive is simple mistakes for long term customers especially retirees. Have you heard AT&T was penalized with $60 million for throttling unlimited services.