{"id":134,"date":"2009-01-21T22:53:41","date_gmt":"2009-01-22T04:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/?p=134"},"modified":"2010-09-19T09:47:22","modified_gmt":"2010-09-19T15:47:22","slug":"you-are-not-free-to-roam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/you-are-not-free-to-roam\/","title":{"rendered":"You are not free to roam…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently bit the bullet and bought the BlackBerry Bold I’d coveted for so long.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the primary drivers was that I’m due to spend a fair bit of time in Japan this year, and I wanted a phone that I could use over there.\u00c2\u00a0 My first trip is\u00c2\u00a0fast approaching (next week), and as part of my preparations, I thought I’d check the details of my ‘phone plan.\u00c2\u00a0 Sadly, it appears that although my ‘phone will technically work<\/em> in Japan, actually using<\/em> it there is a whole ‘nother ball game.<\/p>\n

To start with, AT&T list the\u00c2\u00a0international roaming charges\u00c2\u00a0in Japan as $2.29 per minute for voice service.\u00c2\u00a0 What??\u00c2\u00a0 How do they even work this out? It’s outrageous, especially as they have a data network (the Internet) that they could quite easily route the calls over, and close to zero cost.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Needless to say, I’m not paying it.\u00c2\u00a0 I can get a calling card that gives me international calls at around $0.02 a minute, so that will do for the few times when I call rather than email.\u00c2\u00a0 (Given the time difference of 14 hours between home and Japan, I won’t be doing a lot of calling.)\u00c2\u00a0 They also charge $0.50 for sending an SMS.\u00c2\u00a0 Fifty cents to send a 140-character text updating my status on Twitter??\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a good job I’m not one of these people who Tweets every little thing they do…\u00c2\u00a0 “Dirk is Waiting for a bus”.\u00c2\u00a0 “Dirk is The bus is late” (I know, FB need to drop the “…is…”, and cater to those of us who prefer to craft our own, grammatically correct status updates).\u00c2\u00a0 “Dirk is On the bus”, etc., etc.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d be bankrupt by the time I got to the hotel.<\/p>\n

But the voice service is only half of it.\u00c2\u00a0 Voice I can do without.\u00c2\u00a0 What is important is the data service.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is always charged for separately, despite it all running over the same physical network.\u00c2\u00a0 Here in the U.S. I pay whatever I pay for my voice service (it’s difficult to say exactly what, as I have two mobiles and a home line all bundled into a ‘family plan’) and then another $35.00 per month for a “BlackBerry<\/span> data plan”, which gives me unlimited data access anywhere AT&T’s vaunted 3G network is available.\u00c2\u00a0 Note the emphasis on “BlackBerry<\/span> data plan”.\u00c2\u00a0 I previously had a Sony-Ericsson K790i smartphone (which also had Internet browsing and IMAP email access), and the unlimited data plan for that was only $20.00 a month.\u00c2\u00a0 Note that both plans are “unlimited data”.\u00c2\u00a0 The only difference with the Blackberry plan is that it\u00c2\u00a0is a BlackBerry<\/strong> plan.\u00c2\u00a0 In essence, I’m paying more just because\u00c2\u00a0I want to use a Blackberry.\u00c2\u00a0 And who gets this extra $15.00 a month?\u00c2\u00a0 Not RIM (manufacturers of the BlackBerry) – AT&T, that’s who.\u00c2\u00a0 The same people I’m already paying for the voice service – which, incidentally,\u00c2\u00a0is using exactly the same infrastructure as the data service, so exactly what ‘extra’ are they providing for this extra $15.00 a month?<\/p>\n

Anyway, despite me having a $35.00 “unlimited data” plan, this is only unlimited within the fair shores of the United States.\u00c2\u00a0 I checked the ‘roaming’ charges, and for Japan, there is a charge of $0.0195 per kilobyte for ‘data roaming’.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s per kilobyte<\/span>.<\/em> One of the reasons people have BlackBerry devices as opposed to ‘regular’ phones is the email ‘push’ – emails are automatically forwarded to the device as soon as they hit the server (which is usually as soon as they are sent).\u00c2\u00a0 Admittedly most emails are fairly small, but by the time you’ve added a couple of email accounts (I have three that I check on a regular basis – and that doesn’t include my actual ‘work’ account which they won’t let me divert to my personal Blackberry), all of which get some degree of spam, store subscriptions, and other assorted crud that could realistically wait until I logged onto my laptop, the kb-count starts racking up.\u00c2\u00a0 And unfortunately, there’s not an easy way of switching off individual accounts with a Blacberry. You get all or nothing. so if I want to receive the ‘important’ stuff in Japan, I’m also going to have to pay to receive all of the crap as well.<\/p>\n

But even if I did\u00c2\u00a0decide I could cope without emails\u00c2\u00a0until I found a wi-fi hotspot and could access them for free, there’s all the other\u00c2\u00a0things I’d like to do.\u00c2\u00a0 A photo taken on the Bold’s (risible) 2megapixel camera\u00c2\u00a0weighs in at around 350kb.\u00c2\u00a0 Which means that if I want to take a photo of Mount Fuji, it will cost me an astounding $7.00 so send it to my Flickr account, which is barely worth it given the marginal interest in what I do or see.<\/p>\n

It gets worse.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the other nice things about the Bold is it’s built-in GPS.\u00c2\u00a0 But a screenful of map data is around 200kb.\u00c2\u00a0Depending on\u00c2\u00a0your\u00c2\u00a0speed and\u00c2\u00a0the scale of the map on the screen, it wouldn’t be unrealistic to\u00c2\u00a0drive from side to side of the screen in about a minute.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s $4.00 a minute, just\u00c2\u00a0for\u00c2\u00a0the privilege of having AT&T Navigator tell you\u00c2\u00a0that you’re lost in a strange country.<\/p>\n

Oh, wait a minute. Did I say AT&T Navigator<\/em>?\u00c2\u00a0 Hmm, well, that’s not going to work in Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 Matter of fact, it won’t work anywhere other than in the United States.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want GPS service in Japan (or any other country apart from the good ole U.S. of A.) you’re going to need AT&T International<\/em> Navigator. And that’s going to cost you $19.95 a month extra.\u00c2\u00a0 On top of whatever “unlimited data plan” you may already have.\u00c2\u00a0 Think about it.\u00c2\u00a0 The time when you’re most likely to need GPS is when you’re in a (literally) foreign place, but under the standard plan, you don’t get that.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It’s like saying: Well, we’ll happily tell you what you know already, but if you want us to tell you what you need<\/span> to know, we’re going to charge you for it.\u00c2\u00a0 Gee, thanks, AT&T!<\/p>\n

In fact, the whole paying for AT&T Navigator is a complete rip-off anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 The BlackBerry Bold, as shipped by RIM,\u00c2\u00a0comes with BlackBerry Maps pre-installed.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a navigation system that also works in conjunction with the in-built GPS receiver.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s free.\u00c2\u00a0 However, AT&T remove it, and replace it with their own AT&T Navigator, which you then have to pay $9.99 a month for (and this is the ‘domestic U.S.’ plan).\u00c2\u00a0 To be fair, what AT&T Navigator gives you that Blackberry Maps doesn’t is spoken turn-by-turn directions.\u00c2\u00a0 Surely, you could argue (as I’m sure AT&T do) that is worth paying for?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, not really.\u00c2\u00a0 I bought my wife a Garmin GPS recently.\u00c2\u00a0 That also includes spoke turn-by-turn directions, and there’s no subscription fee at all – just the initial cost of the unit (which, incidentally,\u00c2\u00a0was less than half the price of the Bold).\u00c2\u00a0 Which shows that there is zero<\/span> ongoing cost to supply this service, so AT&T are literally getting money for nothing.<\/p>\n

But after all of that, it turns out that AT&T International Navigator isn’t available in Japan anyway, so I couldn’t even give AT&T my money if I wanted to.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor is BlackBerry Maps (which I managed to re-install via the back-door anyway).\u00c2\u00a0 Which means that I will have to resort to (the also free) Google Maps for finding my way around the back-streets of downtown Shinagawa.<\/p>\n

So all-in-all, between the push emails, uploading photos, and using the GPS, the data roaming fees (even at $0.0195 a kilobyte) would rack up so fast that I’d be scared of even turning my Bold on in Japan. Which is just stupid, especially as AT&T advertise this as a “World Phone”.\u00c2\u00a0 ‘Luckily’, AT&T have a solution.\u00c2\u00a0 For $24.95\u00c2\u00a0you can get a 20meg a month plan, or for $59.95 you can get a 50meg a month plan.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But on a three-week trip to Japan, I’m pretty sure I’ll burn through 50 meg.\u00c2\u00a0 The final option is an “unlimited international data plan”, for $65.00.\u00c2\u00a0 That sounds like a good deal, especially when compared to the\u00c2\u00a050 meg plan, but there’s a catch (of course!).\u00c2\u00a0 If you want the unlimited international data plan, you have to sign up for it for a minimum of 12 months.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s right. You have to be abroad for 12 months to make the most of the plan.\u00c2\u00a0 But if I was going to be in Japan for 12 months, I’d just buy myself a Bold in Japan, and pay NTT DoCoMo significantly less\u00c2\u00a0for the same level of service.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, AT&T are fleecing people just because they can, and without any regard for fairness or practicality!<\/p>\n

So all in all, this Bold thing may not actually turn out to be a boon in Japan, thanks to AT&T saying: “Hey, here’s a cool phone that works all over the world! What’s that? You actually want to use<\/span> it all over the world?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, we’re gonna need all of your money for that.\u00c2\u00a0 All of it.\u00c2\u00a0 ALL OF IT!!”\u00c2\u00a0 Damn scammers!<\/p>\n

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I recently bit the bullet and bought the BlackBerry Bold I’d coveted for so long.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the primary drivers was that I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[55,39,54,29],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-att","tag-blackberry","tag-phone","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}