Originally Posted by
schneider4
Hi -
I've got an AT&T iPhone 5 (unlocked), and will be heading overseas (China, Australia, France) on a number of business trips in the coming months, and I'd like to be able to access Google Maps, translate, and so on. Having been burned on AT&T's ridiculous international data charges before, I'm planning to do the following:
1. Sign up for a T-mobile Simple Plan ($50/month with unlimited international texting and data (albeit slow) and 20 cents/minute calls)
2. Swap out the AT&T nano sim card on the iPhone a few days before the trip with the new T-mobile card and make sure everything's working
3. Use the phone overseas more or less like I would at home. Has anyone out there achieved 3G speed overseas?
4. Swap the T-mobile card with the At&T card when I get back home
5. Keep the T-mobile plan active for tethering, international travel and so on.
One question that I have is whether tethering will work overseas, even if it's slow.
6. Repeat steps 2-4 for each international trip.
Does that seem like a workable plan? I've got an old unlocked AT&T iPhone 4, but it's really slow on iOS 7.1.
Thanks in advance for any guidance!
yes, except the plan is postpaid so it will cost more than $50 per month with fees & taxes. I am debating keeping a TMO # alive for exactly as you describe.
I considered porting to them but, while their signal is good in many places, it is not consistently good (for example, yesterday at ORD AC, I got a ping that was >400ms, and less than 200kbps up/down while ATT gave me a ping <70ms and 7Mbps down and 2Mbps up.
The service, while not fast, is very convenient for international travel (no hunting down a local SIM, etc). Works fine for e-mail, Google Maps and very basic (informational) web browsing. I ported my wife's Nexus 7 to TMO and, when we travel together abroad, that can cover us (that plan is only $30 per month).
I am coming to the conclusion that it is not worth $600/yr (actually closer to $720/yr with taxes) for a convenient, slow international connection and will probably kill my TMO #. BTW, you can vacation hold the # but it expires after 3 months and then you have to jump through hoops to redo it.