After coming back from a five-day trip from Montreal, MythBusters co-host Adam Savage found his mobile phone service was shut off and that he had received an $11,000 phone bill due to roaming charges on his broadband card, a thumb-size USB modem for Internet access.
Canada.com spoke with Adam about his outrageous mobile bill. It turns out during his stay in Canada, he was being charged $0.015 per kilobyte. To reach the charge, he would have had to use 750 megabytes worth of data. With 500 megabytes (500,000 kilobytes) on an iPhone, you can:
-Send 22,261 text emails
-View 2,926 websites
-Receive 931 emails with photos
-Watch 500 minutes on YouTube
While his assistant was on a phone call with AT&T trying to breakdown his bill, Savage posted a message on Twitter stating, "AT&T is attempting to charge me 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada." It quickly became the second most discussed topic on Twitter partly because of Adam's 50,000 followers. Savage said AT&T "graciously" took care of the problem. However, he added that they should alert their consumers of roaming and overage charges before they get out of control.
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November 10, 2009 at 11:05pm
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jedoralive
July 01, 2009 at 1:59am
Seriously - I've never heard or experienced anything but borderline criminal activity from AT&T. How are they still around?
I would love to see Mythbusters bust the myth that AT&T doesn't rip off it's customers.
markm92
June 30, 2009 at 8:33am
Obviously some of you didn't read the article correctly. He didn't use an IPhone, he was using a USB modem, so the roaming charge screen that was shared from the IPhone doesn't apply. I will agree that if the average person had this issue it would not be resolved so "graciously."
jdcfsu
June 30, 2009 at 8:39pm
I realize he wasn't using an iiPhone, but anyone who has seen Mythbusters knows that Adam has an iPhone as he uses it all the time. Given the text that I received from AT&T, I would have to assume he received a similar one. That would be a pretty big tip not to use the air card. And the other commenter is right, if anyone else with only a few twitter followers had the same issue, they'd be paying the whole $11k bill.
malber
June 30, 2009 at 9:20am
Since this is a "Mac" website, that's why I referred to the iPhone. I was one of @donttrythis's followers who replied to the issue, so I'm aware that it was due to wi-fi card usage. But still, this is an excellent example of why someone should stay far away from AT&T for their carrier and why it's unfortunate that it's the only (legal) way you can get an iPhone to work in the US.
malber
June 30, 2009 at 7:53am
...is because it's only available on AT&T. Once they either stop thinking like a telco and start thinking like a data service provider I might reconsider...or on the fat chance the iPhone is provided to different carriers.
angermeans
June 29, 2009 at 6:06pm
I wonder if someone like me had the same problem if ATT would work with me. I doubt it. Then again I only have approximately 400 folllowers on Twitter and I really doubt any of them would really care.
jdcfsu
June 29, 2009 at 5:12pm
They do alert you though. I was recently in Nicaragua and when I arrived and turned my iPhone back on, I received a text from AT&T that outlined the charges I'd face if I used my phone. Picture below:
