Originally Posted by jmgriffin

I signed up for this service just before leaving on our honeymoon trip in December 2013. Here's my brief review:

I went into a T-Mobile store and signed up for the “Simple Choice” plan with unlimited talk, text and data for $70/month + tax. They asked for my driver’s license and social security number; I made sure to ask if they would be doing a “soft pull” or a “hard pull” on my credit. The girl helping me didn’t have the slightest clue to as what I was talking about but I proceeded because it would have to be a “soft pull,” right? I mean, they’re checking my credit to make sure I can repay them around $100/month… Well, I was very wrong. I returned from the trip to find this added to my credit report:


My advice: Proceed with caution and be very clear with the customer service agent that you’re not consenting to a hard pull on your credit report.

Here's where I used the service:


Germany, Frankfurt: Service worked great all over the city; I was able to use Google Maps easily. I had 3G data service throughout.

Latency: 496ms 412ms 429ms 427ms 409ms 364ms 389ms 400ms 406ms 412ms
Speed: 196kbps
Latency: 1051ms 451ms 422ms 726ms 488ms 430ms 439ms 440ms 458ms 450ms
Speed: 186kbps

Indonesia, Denpasar/Bali Region: The service was spotty, at best. My phone would often switch between 3G and EDGE data service. Despite the spotty service, having the phone came in handy and the speed (when I had service) was better than promised by T-Mobile (they only advertise 128kbps).

Latency: 1739ms 5828ms 726ms 736ms 732ms 761ms 924ms 967ms 7559ms 1381ms
Speed: 129kbps
Latency: 706ms 740ms 757ms 752ms 738ms 742ms 747ms 713ms 759ms 954ms
Speed: 168kbps
Latency: 747ms 737ms 741ms 772ms 761ms 755ms 762ms 865ms 743ms 755ms
Speed: 191kbps

Indonesia, Ubud/Bali Region:

Latency: 725ms 743ms 697ms 759ms 727ms 715ms 725ms 717ms 714ms 696ms
Speed: 195kbps

Indonesia, Jakarta: Didn’t run any speed tests, but I found the service to work fine: 3G data just about everywhere.

Singapore: We had an 8 hour layover in Singapore and went into the city. Not sure what was going on, but we had NO SERVICE IN SINGAPORE. I have a quad-band GSM phone so no issues there.

The Maldives: This country is not included in T-Mobile’s free data plan so I did not test it. Current voice rates are at $5.99/min, texts are $0.50 and data is charged at $15/megabyte.

BOTTOM LINE: Communications used to be one of the most costly/inconvenient parts of traveling abroad, but, now (thanks to T-Mobile), it’s not just affordable–it’s downright cheap. The service, while slow if you’ve already been spoiled off of running LTE or 4G data, is adequate for checking email or running Google Maps while on the go. I highly recommend using T Mobile’s new plan when traveling abroad.

Also, I wasn't able to find a good map of the covered countries at the T-Mobile website so I made my own interactive one for future reference. Some might find it useful, you can find it here: http://weekendblitz.com/great-travel...p-calling-too/

Originally Posted by dtsm

If and when no service, often a reset of smartphone will resolve connection. I had that happen when I landed in Bangkok n reset my Moto G...then worked fine.

Originally Posted by NickP 1K

Concur.

I was in SG three weeks ago and have had NO issues on two different carriers (MobileOne and Singtel) http://www.t-mobile.com/Internationa..._roamworldwide [select Singapore]. This was my 5th trip to SG since free roaming

In some cases; select manual network selection and choose one of the roaming partner networks. Automatic selection can "Stall" on some carriers and not come back with a failed roaming connection and the phone may still keep trying that carrier. ALWAYS have ability to manually select.

Side NOTE: Was in S. Korea this week and noticed Olleh/KT has better performance than SKT... Seemed SKT was data saturated to T-Mobile Olleh/KT had no issues