Like many other mobile bloggers, I’ve complained before about excessive international roaming fees. The issue isn’t that I’ve been hit with bill shock because I didn’t know what the prices were; it’s quite the opposite. I know what the charges are, and it’s appalling. While the operator I use, T-Mobile USA, still levies hefty roaming fees, especially for data, I’ve found one way around that seems tacitly approved by the company. I want to document it here for others, but also to give T-Mobile some kudos.

When I complained a year ago, Scott Rafer told me to call and get the $20 per month international roaming plan, a plan of which I wasn’t aware. It appears it’s only available to users on BlackBerry data plans (please leave a note if your experience says otherwise) — so I dropped my $20 domestic flat-rate data, in favor of the $20 BlackBerry add-on plan, which of course includes unlimited data, as well as the ability to use T-Mobile’s BlackBerry services with compatible devices. (To get this plan, you can either call customer service, or you can log into the My T-Mobile site and hit “Not Your Phone?” in the upper right, then choose one of the BlackBerry devices. When you click on “Plan & Services”, you should then be able to swap out your data plan for the BlackBerry one.)

That’s half the magic. The other half is this $20 per month international roaming tariff. One great thing is that T-Mobile will let you add it and remove it from your account whenever you like, and prorate the charges. That is, if you only need it for a week, you can call and add it, then remove it a week later, and you’ll only be charged a fraction of the $20. I’m headed out of the country next week, so I called to do add it, and was a bit surprised when the customer service rep asked me, unprompted, if I’d like to have it removed on a specific date when I return. So while I felt like I was making some slightly shady workaround to avoid paying T-Mobile a bunch of roaming fees, it certainly appears like they’re happy to help.

That shocked me a bit — but I have to say it’s been par for the course with my experience with T-Mobile. I’ve used other US operators and been generally unhappy with their customer service, but I’m yet to have any problems with T-Mobile. Additionally, I find their CSRs to be friendly, helpful, and most of all, knowledgeable. When unhelpful service and policies tend to be the rule rather than the exception for mobile operators, I just wanted to relate my positive experiences with T-Mobile. I still find their normal international roaming rates pretty annoying, but it is nice to know they’re willing to look out for me a little bit.