Traveling in Europe: ATT says if I use the phone as an iPod, it'll cost me!

Question

All I want to be able to do is turn Roaming off, put Airplane on, and network off. Then watch my movies and listen to my music.
However the ATT sales rep told me that because it is 'special' phone that uses datas even when as soon as it's turned on, i should be ready to have to pay... a lot!
Could someone enlighten me?
I could call back but i just tired of having to call many times to hear different stories. One thing is sure is that the sales rep. don't know everything, but the people writing the bills do!!! I wish I could talk to them, maybe I should...

Answer 1

How do you interpret what ATT wrote in the text:
"Check email manually using Wi-Fi instead of having email downloaded automatically to your iPhone. This way you can control the flow of data coming to your iPhone.[...]
This means changing Settings > Fetch New Data to manual instead of one of the automatic options. If it's set to check every 30 minutes, for example, it will do that over the cellular data connection if you're not connected to WiFi. Setting it to manual means you control when email is checked, and can make sure you are connected to a WiFi hotspot first.
What worries me is "control".... "all data associated to emails"... "safari uses more data"...
These just mean that the iPhone is a "full-featured" email/web client. Most cell phones/PDAs have limited web capabilities (e.g. they can only access mobile web sites, which are stripped-down versions of regular websites). The iPhone can handle the most regular browsing, but that means more data transferred (over whatever connecting you are using, cell or WiFi).
1) Does a text email has data?
A text email is still data, yes. A plain text email is less data than an HTML-formatted email, though.
2) would browsing the web using a free wifi connection cost me?
No, if you have a free WiFi connection, there is no charge for data from any carrier.
The bottom line here is that if you don't need to make/receive calls overseas, you can set your iPhone to Airplane Mode, then turn Wi-Fi back on, and you can be very sure that you will not incur any charges (unless you need to pay for Wi-Fi access somewhere).
If you need to make/receive calls, but do not want to pay data roaming charges, first call AT&T to activate international roaming on your account, then be sure Data Roaming is set to off. Note that in that case, you may be prompted to turn it on, for example, if you open an app that needs a data connection, like Weather or Maps, and you are not connected to WiFi, a pop-up will ask if you want to enable data roaming - if you tap yes, you'll be paying for it. The same applies to Visual Voicemail.
Hope this clarifies...