That seems like a very bad deal with the phone company.Why would they not get the roaming rights sorted out? Of course, I can understand data traffic prices can vary. Like for me it's 9,99 a month for unlimited data in any network in Finland, but the price can change a lot if I travel in other countries.
But I just checked that even my phone works in most networks in the U.S. if not all, not sure(?), but there's a list of providers...Bell, AT&T, Manx, T-Mobile...what is your provider? I would be really pissed if I traveled somewhere and suddenly my phone would not work. I haven't even thought of it being possible it wouldn't work in some network.
The calls seem really expensive though if I use my phone in the U.S....for instance in AT&T network calls vary from 0,36 to over a dollar a minute(!) so in that sense I'd rather keep my phone use to minimum over there...my fixed price is six cents a minute. Hardly ever get it past a few bucks a month, plus the 9,90 for data. People usually call me before I call them so my phonecalls are almost nonexistant.
I used to have a cell deal in which I actually got a little money towards my phone bill every time I received calls...but they realized it was a bad deal indeed as they ended up owing me money for my subscription, LOL...wriggled out of it by offering me some good deal on something, I forget what.