KRSW

No, Verizon is expensive. $10 per day per device! That adds up real quickly. China & Japan aren't part of the $10/day deal.. instead you get to pay $40/mo for:

100 minutes
100 sent messages
Unlimited incoming messages
100 MB data allowance

*Overages:
$25.00 per 100 MB
$0.25 per minute
$0.25 per message sent


My T-Mobile phone is $30/mo (business plan), total. For that I get 10GB LTE w/rollover + unlimited music/video streaming + unlimited international data + unlimited WiFi calling on ALL devices they sell, not just iCrap. And the entire phone works fine on WiFi unlike Verizon which can't SMS/MMS via WiFi.

With the T-Mobile Tuesday free weekly pizza giveaway ($11.49), I could argue that I'll be earning $4.50 this month if I were to use it every week.

IsleOfMan

To be fair, the value of the Pizza is more along the lines of $5-6, which is the normal (always running) promotional price for carry-out. That said, the value of the pizza, Vudu rental, frosty, and Gogo really can add up quickly, especially the latter.

If my brother and sister-in-law (who piggy back on my plan and corp cell allowance) had reliable TMobile service in their rural small town, I'd likely have switched by now (the recent freebies might have sealed it, especially Gogo). Even the AT&T network underlying our Cricket service isn't the best in their area... they really should be on a Verizon-based carrier but can make due with AT&T/Cricket since the price is right.

freecia

If they don't use a lot of data, Selectel is a Verizon MVNO which has post paid Verizon roaming coverage. There's also a useful Tracfone calculator here https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/...ne_calculator/ which offers Verizon pre-paid coverage with LTE data at a low price (somewhat convoluted "plans" though). Low everything (high wifi) users can get it for < $20 / month. Data on both get throttled to ~ 5 Mbps.

I keep two main accounts active - prepaid daily/domestic and less frequent/international travel for about the same price I used to pay for domestic post pay on Verizon. It can be worth decoupling the domestic & international features to get the coverage, speed, convenience, and price you need.

IsleOfMan

The main reason they even opened up to leaving PagePlus was the need for more data, but that was before they re-structured with their 1/3/5gb tiers at $30/$40/$55. They also benefited from one of the free Moto G (1st gen LTE) deals Cricket did ~2 years ago as well. We could probably move back to PagePlus for ~$110 all-in, they're happy enough with the service and I greatly prefer the flexibility of using GSM phones and need the Mexico/Canada roaming offered by Cricket on the Smart plan... plus I pay the bill for them, so I get a little say

5khours

I had the same issue. I solved it by getting Skype premium and having my US ATT number forward my Skype number. Now I get all my calls and it doesn't matter what phone or SIM I'm using.

And the VN SIM cards are dirt cheap. $6 for 1.2Gbytes.

I just switch the SIM on the plane, and I'm ready go as soon as I land.

josephstern

Yeah - I might do something like that, but in the iOS world, you lose more than just your phone number when you pop out the SIM. Your iMessages and iCloud accounts get pretty wacky. I try to avoid that if I can.

TWA884

Apples and oranges.

For $10 a day, or $2 a day in Mexico and Canada, I can use my entire Verizon monthly domestic allowance of minutes (unlimited), texts (unlimited) and data (6GB) when travelling in over 100 countries.

The AT&T plans include unlimited texts, but only 120MB with the $30 monthly plan, 300MB with the $60 plan and 800MB with the $120 plan. Overages are $0.25/MB, $0.20/MB and $0.15/MB, respectively, and voice calls are $1.00/min, $0.50/min and $0.35/min respectively. Those numbers add up fast.

My Verizon LG G4, has Wi-Fi calling and the Verizon Messages (Message+) texting app works perfectly fine when connected to either cellular data or Wi-Fi.

In a city like Los Angeles, dissected by mountains and canyons, T-Mobile's reception is a crapshoot. Verizon and, to a lesser extent, AT&T have virtual universal coverage here. T-Mobile's Wi-Fi calling is useless when I'm in my car driving on mountains and canyon roads.

Kagehitokiri

right, and the $10/day is instead of doing an international package

those with grandfathered unlimited would get unlimited data (less cap?) as that is their plan

scubadu

I mostly use local SIMs when traveling. I've never had my iMessages or iCloud accounts "get pretty wacky" I do have to reset my voice mail when I put my regular SIM back in.

Regards

josephstern

You don't get messages pinging around on your other devices about new hardware on the iOS account, and then problems sending texts and iMessages to people who you've corresponded with before, now that there's a new phone number attached? I get that, and then I get it all over again when I go back to my T-Mo SIM upon returning home.

Maybe you don't have your iPad and Mac messages linked into your phone number?

jeff191

Verizon TravelPass isn't available with the old grandfathered - unlimited plans. I had a grandfathered plan and had to switch to a new plan in order to use TravelPass. Not a huge deal since I never used that much data (kept it for "just in case").

Davvidd

I got Viber and get local sims with the data. This works the best for me as then I have one number on Viber and can use that number with any sim I buy from wherever I go. No need to change the number.

Dubai Stu

I have ATT's International data plan (discussed above) and think that is great. I have it in my iPhone 6 which gives me LTE or HSPA in most places suitable for VOIP over data. I used to use Line2 as much virtual number but moved in part because it didn't support short codes, MMS, etc. It has now improved those things, but I moved in the interim over to Project Fi. I have a client on my iPhone and have their SIM in a small phone to avail to avail myself of fallback in most countries of .20 a minute. I also have their extra SIM cards in my other data devices.

I'm looking for an Android DualSIM phone that can handle most LTE bands. I was hoping the One Plus 3 would be that phone, but it is not. That would bring everything together under one "roof."

paperwastage

make sure you understand the differences between dual standby/dual active/only-data-on-1st-sim on different devices.

the sony dual series has been pretty good for LTe bands

E6683 - quadband 2G, pentaband 3G, a lot of LTE bands
dual standby - data connection only on one, (?GSM voice? on the other?)
http://dl-developer.sonymobile.com/d...E6683_WP_2.pdf

PackingIt

If using iMessage with multiple SIMs, it is imperative that your 'from' address is your email address, and not your phone number.