Avoid high roaming costs by using Wi-Fi abroad.
Despite such efforts, avoiding high roaming charges requires attention and vigilance.
Other iPhone users have felt the sting of high roaming charges with their iPhone, too.
GSM customers can avoid sky-high roaming charges by replacing their American SIM cards with ones from other countries.
He said that high roaming prices in Europe, especially for downloading data, reflected the operators' profit expectations, not the true costs of service.
A user could avoid high roaming charges, while the wireless provider would be encouraging phone use that otherwise wouldn't happen.
BERLIN — Mobile phone operators in Europe are charging close to the highest roaming fees allowed, three years after price caps were first imposed, according to data released Tuesday by the European Commission.
In recent speeches, Mrs. Kroes has been critical of Europe's mobile operators, saying she saw no justification for the high roaming charges imposed on consumers, which has also deterred cross-border business development.
When a digital signal is too weak or the system is too busy, some cellphones switch to backup analog networks, which typically carry high roaming charges for some users and make features such as caller ID or text messaging unusable.
"I am fully aware, both as a policymaker and as a consumer, of the impact that high roaming charges have on EU citizens and on the competitiveness of our industry," Viviane Reding, the EU's information society and media commissioner, said.
