Roam, Roam on the range
by Christopher Elliott
Featured in:
ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN BizTravel.com, June 1, 2001
Blame Canada.
That's what Michelle Taylor did when she got a $430 cellular phone bill that included hefty roaming charges for venturing north of the border. "Roaming never entered my mind because I have a 50-state calling plan," says the Carrollton, Texas, saleswoman.
Taylor's roaming story had a happy ending, as far as nightmares go. She managed to talk her carrier into knocking $130 from the bill. But the shock of the initial invoice left a lasting impression. "I've learned my roaming lesson," she says. "I won't do that again."
You would think that roaming troubles are becoming less common as more wireless providers offer nationwide calling plans, but that's not necessarily true. In fact, roaming bill surprises may be becoming more frequent, in part because of user ignorance of complicated rate plans and in part because of a surge in new cellular phone customers.
Blame our neighbors to the north for Celine Dion or Peter Jennings, but the roaming thing is our problem.
And it's an expensive one. Jennifer Holder, a Seattle-based consultant, got socked with a $5 per-call surcharge when she visited Washington, D.C., recently. "My bill for the month was three times higher than normal," she complains. "For the same amount of minutes." Holder did what any reasonable user would do: she terminated her service and found another cellular phone company.
Michele Brownstein chose to stay and fight the charges when her daughter's cell phone started generating unexpected roaming charges. The "free and clear" plan she had subscribed to promised no roaming or long-distance charges for $49.99 per month. "Within three weeks she was charged over $200 in roaming charges," she says. "I have spoken with numerous customer services representatives, and I was told that she should have known she was roaming and her phone was not programmed correctly."
The account has gone to a collection agency.
Socking it to subscribers who wander outside of their coverage area is a compelling moneymaking opportunity for cellular providers. Last year the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association reported that annual roaming revenues jumped 7.7 percent to $4.1 billion from a year before. The profits have taken off since 1993, when the yearly roaming loot collected by the wireless-industrial complex surpassed the $1 billion-mark for the first time.
If you don't want to add an excessive amount of your money - or your company's money - to a cellular phone company's bottom line, what can you do?
- Read the fine print. Don't just study the contract, but find out what's "in" and "out" of bounds. Caroline Locke, a Boston technology consultant, is signed up for an East coast calling plan that stretches from Maine to Virginia. "I think the calling area maps are vague on purpose because I always incur a ton of roaming charges in Virginia and Connecticut, where I'm supposed to be covered. I have no idea where my calling area starts and where it ends," she says.
- Consider a prepaid phone. Already popular in Europe (my younger brother swears by them) prepaid phones are gaining a foothold in the United States - and not just among international travelers whose GSM phones are useless. The benefits of a prepaid, according to Kevin Korterud, president of USIntellicom are cheaper prices and the ability to monitor your balance on the phone. "Prepaid phone services today are pretty sophisticated and offer roaming, Internet access and airtime balance checks by just pressing a few buttons on the phone," he adds.
- Learn how to use your phone. Sounds really obvious, but a lot of folks don 't take the time to read the manual (I've done that a time or two). If you did, then you'd know that you could push the wrong button and incur extra charges. "If you get a plan from a national carrier like Sprint, set the phone to 'Sprint PCS network only'," advises Allan Keiter, president of MyRatePlan.com, a Web site that helps you determine the best cellular phone service for your needs. "You won't be able to make or receive calls while off the network, but you can then choose when to incur roaming charges."
Ultimately, there probably isn't one magic bullet for the roaming problem. After all, since it's in a carrier's best financial interests for you to rack up roaming bills, avoiding these mysterious charges probably won't get any easier in the near term. The surcharges will be waiting for you, whether it's you or the phone or the vague calling that is to blame for them.
Perhaps stricter government controls are the answer in the long-term. Then again, maybe we should just read the directions that came with our phones.
Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Annapolis, Md. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. The Travel Technologist appears weekly on this site. This story was also published on Biztravel.com.
|
|
i
|
|
Blog |
Refer a Friend |
Press Room |
Contact Us |
Partnerships |
About Us
