Ina Fried for AllThingsD:
Roaming charges may have made sense at one point, Schuster said, but added that “it is not justifiable going forward and the industry will change.”
Schuster said his company has stopped some charges for its customers who roam onto rival’s networks and also applauded European regulations that are forcing the issue.
Let’s hope things follow suit in the US. International roaming fees for Americans traveling abroad are insane.
I agree. I know for many people I know that travel internationally, it is not the voice roaming that is as bad as the data. So when you bring your iPhone or iPad 3G/4G along with you on a trip, you need to make sure that you disable all data services on it 1st before you leave if you do not want to get “bill shock” as so many apps run in the background and will check in when you land and start to use the local data network.
What we really do need is some international agreements for tourists that want to travel around the world only once or twice a year where they can pre-purchase 1 or 2 moths of service months ahead of time as it is not like most tourists I know do not know a long time before they travel as they pre-book their airplane, rental car and hotel. We need to add to that the ability to pre-book/pre-pay for voice and data (eventually the same thing) as part of the trip to take the stress out of that part of the trip and keep international travelers from getting massive bills that either will not be paid at all or be negotiated down.
The way I see it, It would save the carriers time and hassle trying to track down people for delinquent bills and be better for the customers as they could not worry about brining their smartphones and tablets on trips.
Or, carriers should allow their customers to unlock their phones for international use, so they can buy cheap plans locally in the countries they visit.