You think your roaming charges are bad? Well you’ve got nothing on Russian eagles, one of which managed to wipe out the entire budget for the wildlife tracking group that was studying it when it flew to Iran.
A group of Russian scientists are tracking migrating eagles using SMS technology to stay updated on the birds’ movements. Messages are sent as the birds migrate adding to the overall map of their travels. The birds started out in southern Russia and went to Kazakhstan where they fell off range. This would have been fine if they had picked up signal closer.
One bird flew straight to Iran where it finally got back on the gird and sent all its messages at once. The resulting fees completely knocked out the budget and the group had to set up a crowdfund to pay it off. Not to worry though, the mobile company heard of the trouble, dropped the debt and put the eagles on a lower plan. That’s one way to get a better rate we guess.