The Fine Print
When I landed in Nicaragua a few weeks back, an interesting thing happened. I turned on my iPhone so that I could text my contact parent back in the states and let them know we were all set. That’s when I received this text:
Claro is the cell provider in Nicaragua and, surprisingly, has excellent coverage all across the country (at lest the 60 or so KM I traveled). This was the second foreign country I took my iPhone to, and the first that greeted me upon arrival. What a cool thing. It made me very happy to be in Nicaragua. Then a few moments later I received this text:
Thanks, AT&T, for proving you’re an evil conglomerate corporation that cares nothing more than making a dollar. I had turned all the data features on my phone off prior to traveling because I knew that the bill could rise in a hurry, but $19.97 a megabyte? Really? I was floored.
And in case you had any questions, AT&T did not welcome me back to the States with a friendly text message. I bet Claro wouldn’t have any problems with iPhone tethering…
I wonder what Claro charges their customers when they’re using the AT&T network.
And, though I could look it up and maybe confirm it, isn’t Claro part of a bigger company than AT&T. I thought I remembered reading something about them once when I was reading about T-Mobile USA and its parent company and so on.
From Wikipedia: Claro is the largest mobile phone network in the Americas. It is part of the Mexican telecom group América Móvil which is the fifth largest mobile phone network operator in the world, with more than 170 million customers.
Nice memory.
Thanks. Of course, I couldn’t remember my security badge for this morning, so I’ll call it a draw.