The other day we tested a rugged handheld in the RuggedPCReview.com lab. The device so happened to have a SIM slot because it also worked as a phone and a WWLAN data communicator. I so happen to have an unused phone with a SIM in it, and so I decided to use that SIM for testing the rugged handheld. Why do I have an unused phone? Because it’s on one of the AT&T’s 2-year service contracts. It’s just a crappy throw-away phone, but thanks to AT&T I am now paying for it for another year whether I am using it or not.\n<\/p>\n
So I stick that SIM into the review handheld, make three local calls and load a couple of pages of the RuggedPCReview.com website. Works fine. Take the card out and return it into the unused AT&T phone.\n<\/p>\n
So then I get the bill. That’ll be $14.83 for 1,483kb, i.e. loading one or two large webpages. Thank you very much, AT&T. This kind of highway robbery is precisely why I have completely stopped making any call that I am not certain is covered in my “plan.” I am not even calling my mom anymore because I have no clue what outrageous amount AT&T may charge me for a call to Europe.\n<\/p>\n
But wait, there’s more.\n<\/p>\n
I was on vacation in the Caribbeans for a week. I took my iPhone with me, not because I was going to make a call (heavens no, not with AT&T in an unknown situation!!!), but because the iPhone is a little computer\/camera\/vidcam\/PDA that I take everywhere. Well, apparently six people called my phone while it was in the Caribbeans. I never answered. “That’ll be a buck 99 for each call, fool. Haha. Gotcha again. – Your friends at AT&T.”\n<\/p>\n
And there AT&T and the other telcos wonder why we loathe them so much.\n<\/p>\n
With voice\/data increasingly integrated into rugged handhelds and notebooks, be very careful. That SIM in your machine has “Sucker!!!” written all over it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The other day we tested a rugged handheld in the RuggedPCReview.com lab. The device so happened to have a SIM slot because it also worked as a phone and a WWLAN data communicator. I so happen to have an unused phone with a SIM in it, and so I decided to use that SIM for […] →Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":762,"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruggedpcreview.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}