Other LanguagesA couple years ago, I worked in the fishing industry in Alaska. I was on a coastal freighter that made the trip from up Tacoma carrying supplies for all the Aleutian Island fisheries and back with all the fish. Because I knew there would be a fair amount of downtime on the main North-South leg of the journey, I brought my laptop with me. Hugging the coast of Canada for a large portion of the time, I got wireless signals for both my laptop and my cell phone.
Awesome, right? No. When I got my next bill it was over $1,000 for all of the international roaming I was doing.
Seems silly looking back, but it just didn’t occur to me at the time. I do, however, take some comfort in the fact that stuff like this happens to people all of the time. If it didn’t, the newly launched Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Consumer Help Center would not exist.
Offering tips on everything from understanding your cell phone bill to ways to protect your privacy, it’s a great resource for consumers to better protect themselves from communication service blunders.
Oh, and look.
There’s a page with tips about wireless service abroad so you can stay in touch without “racking up a huge bill," an outreach campaign called Wireless World Travel Week and a "savvy traveler" blog.
*grumbles*
~ Darius Schwarz, AGO Public Affairs Intern