iphone 3G with O2 abroad/Europe

ifconfig

I'm going to France shortly and will be taking my O2 iPhone 3G with me.

I've checked this with O2 customer support but just need to see that it checks out with others out there.

I want to avoid pretty much at all costs using the cellular/3g or Edge network for data/internet services. The O2 folks told me that the settings have "data roaming" turned off by default. I've checked that and it is indeed the case.

My iPhone contacts are set to sync to the "cloud" by using Exchange/Gmail (as opposed to MobileMe). Am I safe in assuming that this background syncing won't happen under the covers so long as I keep the data roaming setting on the device turned OFF at all times ?

My only fear is exactly that the phone might consume some data I/O behind my back. I think I am safe as long as I never tamper with the data roaming setting. My intention is that if I *really* need to use the internet on the phone in any way at all that I will just find a wifi hotspot. I believe there are a lot more of these in France now compared to a year ago. I had my iPod touch with me last year and McDonalds was the only place I found (mind you I wasn't obsessing about finding wifi .. I was happy mostly to be offline and just get on with enjoying my break away from work/Ireland !)

-ifc

Dades

I spent a week in Portugal with Data Roaming turned off and had no sneaky data charges whatsoever.

If accessed, any app that required a connection just popped up a message saying it wasn't connected.

seamus

Yep, spent a week in Italy with data roaming switched off (and no other settings changed) and I wasn't billed one iota of data usage.

ifconfig

Thanks for that guys.

I saw a thread on the O2 charges / tariffs forum where someone claimed they were billed although they used wifi exclusively in their hotel and never used the data connection. Their bill was 760Eu. It wasn't clear, however, whether the chap concerned had data roaming set to ON. I will certainly keep it off.

--ifc

Jimbo

I turned on my roaming while in Portugal a few months ago to check emails, etc

It cost me €40, so don't be tempted

anoble66

part of the reason I am with three is because you can use data abroad - well a good few european countries and you will only be charged your usual Irish bundle rate, no roaming charges..