AT&T announced new international roaming data plans that cut the cost of iPhone Web surfing overseas. AT&T's international roaming rates will help iPhone users access more data in more countries for less. AT&T also unveiled a travel site to help clients decide on international data-rate plans. AT&T's roaming-rate packages cover over 67 countries.

Perhaps it was the resounding howls of pain from AT&T international business travelers when they opened their monthly 3G phone bills, or a fit of corporate generosity, but AT&T unveiled new international roaming data plans on Tuesday. While still pricey, they cut the cost of iPhone Web surfing overseas a great deal over previous rates. The new rates to into effect as of Wednesday, for the asking.
Package Cuts Rates Significantly

AT&T's new data-roaming rates come not a billable minute too soon for some customers. Past rates for roaming came in at roughly $40 for 2MB of data -- not hard to do when you hit YouTube or a Facebook photo gallery.

"AT&T has worked diligently to provide affordable options for international roaming because the feature-rich mobile  experience of [the] iPhone is indispensable to users," said Bill Hague, AT&T wireless  operations international executive vice president. "With these new international data plans, iPhone users can access more data in more countries for less cost."

Less cost equates to either $119 or $199 per month. The $119 plan gets you 100MB of data, while the $199 plan doubles your data to 200MB. The per-month packages can be added and deleted at will, with no penalty, giving international callers a great pay-as-you-travel option when planning overseas trips.

To that end, AT&T also announced a travel site (www.wireless.att.com/travelguide) to help customers decide on rate plans according to their itinerary. The roaming-rate packages cover more than 67 countries worldwide, including Japan and South Korea. Countries off the rate-plan list -- including Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates -- are charged at the standard $0.0195/KB rate. M

Asked if AT&T intends to add to the list of countries covered on the new data-plan list, Jenny Parker, spokesperson at AT&T, said, "We're always looking to find ways to give customers more discounts in more places, so we will add countries to this plan as we can." Parker also indicated that the packages would not cover AT&T's cruise-ship service.

3G International Rate Competition

Some analysts predict that data-roaming rates will remain as high as providers can keep them -- as long as there is no competitive pressure to do otherwise. T-Mobile could not be reached regarding its international data-roaming rates. On that front, 02, a United Kingdom provider, and Orange in Poland have showed some price cuts in their respective countries. But competition has been heavier in Europe for quite some time. High roaming rates overseas have been a primary roadblock for iPhone corporate adoption.

AT&T also provided tips on how to further reduce roaming costs. First up, turn off 3G data and use Wi-Fi wherever possible. Customers are also urged to turn off automatic e-mail notifications. The company also suggests resetting the data counter at the beginning of trips to more accurately monitor usage.

Source:toptechnews