I think you're right on the money on the second point. How easy/reliable is it for someone to turn off data roaming? I wouldn't be surprised if even mobile operators were confused over what exactly constitutes data roaming in some areas.
The telecommunications industry's monetization plan has often been about creating esoteric plan restrictions, charging customers up the wazoo when they violate these restrictions, while not giving customers effective tools for monitoring or managing their usage.
You're specifically not allowed to tether using this plan and it's smart phones only - tablets, dongles, etc are not covered. I use over 10 GB of 3g data each month and they haven't complained.
So, 120 MB for $30 (£20) per month sounds pretty steep to me.
However roaming charges within the European Union are currently regulated to a maximum of €0.20 ($0.23) per MB. So a 120MB plan would be €24 ($27.32). That being said, if it isn't delayed by a future proposal, all roaming charges within the EU will be abolished on December 15th, 2015. True international roaming will still be ridiculously expensive, no doubt.
EDIT: My numbers don't include VAT (which is 20% in the UK) - so it's actually currently more expensive in the EU than in the example given in the post.
It's common enough for U.S. Carriers to do this.
No comment on whether that's a fair price.
Op could have been at the border for an hour in the lineup roaming as the line can be several hours to get through at the US-can truck border crossing and/or the peace arch crossing they traveled through, need more details.
My phone might pickup a cell tower in US while in Canada at home and I get hit with roaming...
Just need to contact carrier and explain that you were not across border.
There is a reason why your phone has turn off data when roaming options... For people who don't have roaming data plans so you don't accidently use roaming data.
I'd bet my reputation that AT&T is bundling data packets across the border - and that this could be the basis of a big class action suit.
In my case, I was driving northward from Oak Harbor to Vancouver. Roaming was off on my AT&T phone - so there should have been no intl data billed until I turned it on for that one minute.
If pressed, AT&T would need to correlate three pieces of information - the clearing house data, their billing, and the canadian network provider's logs. Each entity is legally separate here - if all three logs line up, it's going to be hugely compelling evidence.
It's very unlikely that AT&T is gathering up your data charges and billing you as you go over the border - it would be supreme incompetence at a carrier of this scale. More likely, something's gone wrong at the clearing house, and you should press them for aligned, detailed records. (I audited telco billing systems for a few years.)
But, is it really worth $30? I'd just pay TBH.
OP sounded pretty sure, but I'm skeptical.
With nothing between the town and Canada but the lake, often my phone would randomly switch between AT&T or Rogers. I'll get hit with insanely expensive roaming charges without realizing it. Not till the phone switches back to ATT and I get a text message. That requires me to call ATT and deal with it.
It's such a headache that I just turn off the phone when I go there. My in-laws and all their friends in that area sticks with Verizon for this reason. ATT needs to find a way to be smarter about geo-location and not just randomly switch around when one is near the border.
How does that help? My Verizon phone used to roam onto Canadian networks if I got too close to the border.
> ATT needs to find a way to be smarter about geo-location and not just randomly switch around when one is near the border.
No kidding. It's not like they don't know exactly where you are.
But I suddenly get a warning message that I'm over $100 usage. I call AT&T. What had happened was that because of weather I had flown out early prior to my scheduled start of service. The AT&T rep was very friendly and back-dated by service start. Exactly the way to handle it. No complaints.
(On another trip I got a fairly large bill because of a big download I didn't mean to make. But that was really on me and I more blame the app maker for not warning me that I was making a 250MB download on 3G.)
Hopefully this isn't a widespread practice, but I could imagine it easily be part of the shenanigans regularly played.
He had a $750 bill, because he had no data package. They were willing to settle it after the fact for the $30 15MB data package; which seems fairly reasonable.
On the other hand, it seems that at the end he claims, and I don't know if it is true or not; that AT&T didn't bill him for his US usage for the hour prior; and then dumped all that into one bucket at the higher rate. I think this is a serious thing that really matters; if they are charging you for international data that is not actually international that is (in my mind) fraud. Proving that, is probably next to impossible for an individual.