On the Edge

I got my first iPhone-related bill this week. It was for almost $400.00.

Why so high? Well, during our Alaska trip, I used the iPhone to surf the web, access visual voice mail, and send & receive Internet email while in Vancouver -- for one day. One of the web graphics-heavy web pages I pulled cost more than $20.00 to download.

I'm lucky: some folks are receiving bills so long, they're being mailed in boxes ... for thousands of dollars in service charges. This guy got his waived ... but not everyone hit with these bills will get national attention from the folks at BoingBoing.net.

Note to Apple and AT&T: that just won't do -- especially since:

a) I travel out of the country a lot, and

b) there's no way to turn off the iPhone's ability to access AT&T's Edge network without disabling the cell phone functions as well.

The best work-around so far? Before traveling internationally, iPhone customers are calling AT&T and asking for their Edge network access to be disabled [link]. The upside? Even then, you can still access the Internet via WiFi connections. The downside? No visual voicemail.

The iPhone is a great piece of hardware, and the user experience is simply magical. That said: even for international data access, these service charges are ridiculous. Somewhere, someone at Apple and AT&T better address this issue ... and fast.