AT&T adds new Passport international roaming plans

AT&T Wireless customers planning on traveling out of the country soon should take a look at the company's new international roaming plans. Called Passport, the plans offer unlimited messaging and Wi-Fi, "affordable" calling rates, and data for a 30-day period.

The packages start at just US$30 for the basic Passport plan. That covers the aforementioned unlimited messaging and Wi-Fi, provides calling at $1.00 per minute, and 120 MB of data, with an overage charge of $0.25 per MB. If you plan on using additional data or making more voice calls, the $60 Passport Plus plan drops the cost of calling to $0.50 per minute and bumps the data cap to 300 MB (overage charge of $0.20/MB applies).

For those who want to talk a lot and do some surfing on the side, the Passport Pro plan tops out at $120 with $0.35 per minute international calling rates, 800 MB of data, and an overage fee of $0.15 per MB.

While those rates and the included data amounts don't seem all that generous, the Passport plans are much less expensive than using AT&T's pay-per-use rates. Those are $0.015/KB in Canada, $0.0195/KB for the rest of the world. That's about $15.36 per MB in Canada and $19.96 per MB on the rest of the planet.