The Issue:

When traveling abroad, data costs and roaming charges can be hugely painful. If you’re like me, you’d like a phone, but don’t necessarily need access to email.

During a particularly busy period, I called Rogers and asked them if there was a way to keep the Black Berry phone functionality without the data service.

Well, they told me no. In fact, the person I spoke with on the phone gave me a complicated procedure to set up specific filters for each of my six email addresses in order to limit the amount of data downloaded to the device.

Anyway, today my Pearl decided to stop working randomly and inexplicably. While trouble shooting, I found this nifty little option, and thought I would pass it along to save others the headache of dealing with data while abroad.

The Trick: (For people with Pearls)

1. GO TO OPTIONS: In your applications menu, choose the little wrench to access the options menu.
2. CHOOSE MOBILE NETWORK: Scroll down until you see Mobile Network.
3. TURN DATA SERVICES OFF: At the top of the screen there should an option called Data services. Select it with the track ball and turn it off.

Voila! You can now travel abroad without having to worry about hugely expensive charges and fees.

Happy traveling!