iPhone data plans go international

iPhone

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

AT&T is now offering iPhone owners international data plans designed to give discounted rates to 29 countries In North America, Australasia, and Europe (see AT&T's Web site for a complete list). The plans are designed for iPhone users who travel frequently outside the United States, the U.S. Virgin islands and Puerto Rico, where iPhone data use is unlimited.

For $24.99 per month, you can get 20MB of data use in the select group of nations while $59.99 will get you 50MB of data use. The overage rate for either plan is $0.005 per kilobyte (or about $5 per megabyte), while data rates in other countries range from $0.010 to $0.0195 per kilobyte.

Though that may sound great to some globe-trotters, remember that the international plans will be in addition to your normal iPhone monthly plan and AT&T's international calling rates. But we're more concerned with how you're supposed to track your usage. Just how are you supposed to know how many kilobytes you're using at a time? Couldn't AT&T have given us a better metric?

[Pete666]

Wow, what a crappy plan

I used my T-Mobile Dash all over Europe last month and didn't incur any extra charges.

[lb330]

Worked well

We used our iPhones in France and England and the international data plan worked great. All we had to do was reset the data usage in "Settings" when we left for vacation to track how much we used while overseas. We went ten days on about 17MB, using Google maps and Safari.