I'm traveling to 8 countries in 3 weeks. Never done roaming internationally so have a few basic questions. Also posted this on Howard Forums but it is apparently awaiting mod approval

I am traveling to several countries within a few weeks. I was looking at ATT's $30 international data plan for 120MB. Here are some questions.

1. Is it true that if you use data, you can't disable text and voice from reaching you (and getting hit with roaming fee)? So if say my friends include me in 200 useless group texts while I'm overseas, I have NO choice but to receive them and pay the roaming charge, is that right?

2. For voice, I thought I was fine as long as I don't answer calls, until I read this from ATT FAQ:

Sounds like I will be charged, probably at an exorbitant rate, as long as the caller sticks around long enough to hear the voicemail msg, even if I don't answer the call. Is that right?

The voice part is easy. If you have a smartphone, you could forward the call to another US number and I believe you should not be hit by international roaming charge. I don't know what you can do with TXT though. I don't think you can forward TXT by yourself. Maybe AT&T could stop TXT temporary for you, but you probably will have to call them to find out.

As for voice, as mentioned, unconditionally forward your phone to another number or voicemail. Incoming txt comes out of your txt package. With most folks having unlimited txt these days, receiving txt while roaming is no longer an issue.

Yes, only way to not get calls or texts would be to turn off cellular phone side, which would turn off data and defeat the purpose.

If you have the phone on, I usually forward my number to a google voice number, so the actual CALLS don't hit the phone/voicemail and you don't get charged incoming call and incoming voicemail (you get charged for both for each call that comes in and goes to voicemail).

As for texts, I believe that incoming texts go against whatever plan you have. so, if you have say 200 texts, they would come from that. Or, if you have unlimited texts, then the INCOMING ones comes from that bucket. OUTGOING texts are .50$ a text or you can buy a bucket of outgoing texts for 10$ for 50, making them .20$ a text..but overages are a bit higher.

then, the data plan you buy would just go against what you use. I turn off a LOT of settings when I travel abroad. email on manual, show just the header. Don't download attachments unless I click on it, that sort of thing.

With some good management, you can get by with 120MB for a week. Using wifi when available and making less than 20-30 min of calls on the cellular side.

I double checked the ATT FAQ and you guys are right, RECEIVING txt while abroad comes off the domestic plan. I missed that part. That takes care of my txt needs overseas. And I confirmed with ATT that unconditional forwarding would avoid roaming charges.

Thanks a bunch for the tips.

if you have an Iphone, watch out. My wife's phone ate data like mad on a tripmto asia last spring. We paid for overage twice. Never could figure out what was eating data even after turning off most notifications and location based services. So we got hit with a bill bigger than planned. even so the extra cost was no more than a meal.

if you are using ios 7, it will tell you what is actually using the cellular data.

I just returned from a five day trip overseas and while I used my data sparingly (or at least I thought so) I burned through the 120 MB quickly. Next time, I will be more vigilant in turning off more of the data-hungry apps.

Yeah it is very useful. My son has an iPad Mini Retina with the free Tmobile 200Mb per month plan. He is only 8 but he has already learn to watch his data usage and monitor all the apps so the 200Mb will last the month. Some of the games and apps use a lot more data than you think they should.

and contacts and calendar and weather and stocks and a whole bunch of stuff that should just be turned off most likely for cellular use when traveling internationally.

Regarding:

I know you said you were on AT&T, but when I saw your post it dawned on me that this may explain some mystery charges one of my roaming users generated last month. We're on T-mobile and all of her calls billed at the appropriate roaming rate ($.20/min) and all the data was free, but there were 3 1-min calls to voicemail billed at $2.99/min. She says she didn't call voicemail and I believe her. I think the scenario you mentioned is probably what happened, that she let it ring through to VM. It had me stumped until I saw your post.

I mention all this only because if you're considering picking up T-mobile service temporarily just for the free data roaming benefits (as has been suggested in other threads here on FT), you would still need careful about that potentially costly loophole.

Better yet - turn off background app refresh altogether. Only let apps use data when you're using them. Switch the cellular data connection off altogether when you're not using it. Also, make sure you have app auto-update switched off. Finally, make use of available wi-fi networks anywhere you go. 120MB of data has been more than sufficient to get me through two weeks on an iPad.

a bit different. The background app refresh and the use of cellular are a bit discreet functions. While good to turn off background app refresh, I think it would be better to just turn off apps access to cellular regardless so they can never really us it without one explicitly turning it on.

OP here. Trip started a few days ago. I followed nmenaker's advice to turn off all excess options and have been monitoring closely. 3 minutes of Google Map or Yelp uses 5 MB. I turn on airplane mode as soon as I'm done.

It's nice to be able to use GPS/location services without data.

sadly, it probably wasn't google maps at all. Unless you're downloading a large area (for local storage) or doing a lot of real time moving it doesn't use much..

Sadly, it was probably the ad database for Yelp, those apps can bring down some substantial data when used. It also tries to cache a lot of data, images, etc for the location you've just queried.

check the cellular use data and see. I got a cappuccino that says google maps used 500kb and yelp 4.5 MB. ;-)