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Thanks to one of our listeners receiving an over inflated bill from O2, it has come to light that the iPhone 4 ‘Data Roaming Off’ feature doesn’t affect the ‘Off’ bit of the setting.
Terry spent some time abroad in Portugal after the purchase of his new iPhone only to return from the trip to a bill from O2 which included Data Roaming charges at £25. When he questioned it O2 suggested that the charges were genuine and that Terry was liable saying that it was likely a problem with the Push Notifications. Forward thinker Terry, had however purchased a local PAYG Sim at £20 to overcome the problem so knew that this couldn’t be the case. More worryingly the charge was for two transfers at 4Mb and 5Mb or as Terry suggested “it was just app grabbing the connection for a few minutes” when he arrived. A high premium for data.
After some serious debate and “Jumping Up and Down” O2 have rescinded the charges (Well done chaps) but the problem, nonetheless still exists and no one seems to be in a hurry to fix it. Well why would they
This is nothing new. When the iPhone 3GS emerged last year a similar problem existed and in that case an update to the software solved the problem some weeks later. Have Apple made the same bloop again? Surely not!
All iPhone 4s arrive unlocked (unless your Canadian) and talking to some people who know far more than me, there is a possibility that this lies at the current heartache for iPhone Users.
Your ‘Data Roaming Off’ functionality can be used when ‘At Home’ but this has no effect whatsoever as the phone notices that your carrier is your ‘native’ supplier. This is to stop your phone from grabbing the best data signal from an overseas supplier when you are near a border (Northern and Southern Ireland as a UK example). However, when the phone goes abroad, it would appear that it fails to notice that your carrier is NOT your native supplier.
So how do you solve the problem. MANUALLY is the answer. One suggestion from Terry is that you can access your network settings and manually change the APN USER and PASSWORD. Make a note of them first but then go to...
➡ Settings
➡ General
➡ Network
➡ Cellular Data Network
➡ Username & Password
Change these and the phone will be incapable of making a data connection but can still make calls.
As someone who purchased an iPhone 4 as a stand alone purchase, I am intrigued to find out the truth behind this fact.
As I publish this, I am awaiting further information from both Apple and O2. But at this point, O2 are confirming that the issue is something they are ‘investigating with Apple’
I will keep you posted as I find out more
Regards
Ewen

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Ewen Rankin

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