Quote:
Originally Posted by johnny.simpatico
I previously had wonderful luck using a more primitive phone capable of UMA calling. Recently bought a used Blackberry 8900 in advance of a trip to Mexico. UMA worked great, but i just received a big bill for ROAMING CHARGES.
Please pay attention to warnings to make sure the phone is not "attached" to the foreign carrier while in UMA mode. It can be costly.
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What specifically were you charged for? If you are on UMA, you are not attached to the foreign carrier. UMA connects to the Tmobile equipment via the internet.
However, since it is possible to set the connection preference to mobile network, it may be running data through the cell network rather than wifi. Or it could be charges when the phone if off wifi and goes onto the local cell network. Any non-UMA calls you recieve that go to voicemail are charged since the call finds the phone on the other network, then forwards the call back to the US voicemail. Also any data services running in the background will incur charges without you realizing it.
It is technically possible for Tmobile to figure out that that someone is in another country while on UMA. However they have not historically charged roaming charges. If they've now doing this, that would be good to know.
I just used UMA overseas and it overlapped January's bill. That bill has no roaming and neither does the current billing. Although something could show by the end of the month. I have not received any notification that wifi calls would be charged as roaming though. Also, I have international services deactivated on my account, so I can't use my phone overseas on the cell network. So it will never show as connecting to a foreign network, which is one thing that may trigger such notification.