AT&T hasn’t had a lot of good news lately. The new Apple iPhone 3G has caused headaches among buyers who are complaining about dropped calls and poor network coverage. The blogosphere is atwitter, too, wondering whether the iPhone is worth the hefty price.

Now AT&T, exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone, has two new ways for consumers to part with their hard-earned cash. On Tuesday, it announced two additional international data plans for the iPhone, one of which costs as much as the phone itself.

Heavy data users have two new options: pay $120 per month for 100 megabytes of international data use or $200 for 200 megabytes. Previously, AT&T announced a 20-megabyte plan for $25 and 50-megabyte plan for $60 plan. A word of caution: Those fees are in addition to what customers already pay to use the phone in the United States.

It’s enough to make even ardent iPhone fans suffer sticker shock. But AT&T, like its competitors Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, want users to get hooked on surfing the Web or downloading maps wherever they are because customers pay more for those plans than regular voice plans.

AT&T’s rationale for the fees is that it costs iPhone users traveling abroad an eye-popping $40 to download a three-minute video from YouTube (using two megabytes of data) without one of their plans.

AT&T says customers can cancel whenever they want, but there are caveats. If you are overseas for only a week, you still have to pay for the whole month — an AT&T spokesman said the company doesn’t prorate the fees. And if you forget to cancel the plan after you get home, you will continue to be charged. AT&T won’t let you specify ahead of time when you want the international plan to end.