Tbaytel sends roaming charge warning to smartphone users
Thunder Bay company aims to educate cell phone users about international roaming charges
Smartphone users with Tbaytel can expect to get a text message about data roaming, if they haven't yet received one. Some customers have suffered 'bill shock' after travelling overseas.
The company is sending out a blanket text to subscribers, warning them about international data charges, said Tbaytel’s Corporate brand communication manager Katie Crowe.
"The charges that are incurred when you're using data on your smartphone can get quite expensive," she said.
Some bills have been higher than $1,000.
As a safeguard, Tbaytel customers will soon have to request international data service instead of allowing automatic roaming to take place.
"We are going to implement international data blocking. Unless they call in to purchase a ‘travel saver’ package, data roaming will be blocked when they travel outside Canada and the U.S."
The text message is meant to "inform our customers about a new policy that will help protect them against unexpected international data roaming charges," Crowe noted.
This is "just another step" toward protecting customers, Crowe said.
"Education about data roaming and so on has been going on for a couple of years … Data is a relatively new service, and there's that migration from strictly a voice cell phone to smart phones."