Hmm, I am not sure why in the world you would use Mobal. Outrageously expensive would be an understatement when it comes to this company. I usually use data + Google Voice when I am abroad, and so far it has worked great for me. When it comes to actual emergencies, your phone would be able to dial 911 or 112 even without a SIM card.

I am going to veer a bit into offtopic, but I am quite happy with my Ukrainian Kyivstar sim card, as it offers a very reasonable roaming (in 1st and 2nd world countries anyway): $1.35/100 Mb per day for data. It has worked great for me in Canada because it does not force me to pay for the whole month and delivers solid LTE speeds on Rogers. This Red Pocket Global plan is cheaper per 1 Gb, but it's not as attractive for those who go to Canada for a few days at a time and don't use much data. Plus, we have yet to see what speeds it will have abroad.

When I had a regular domestic Red Pocket prepaid service, the speed was not that great on Verizon network. It did not throttle me at 5 Mbps like Straight Talk (Verizon), but still the speed was not as good as on T-mobile network.