Originally Posted by
draver
Here is my final update on my Motorola Edge 2022 Android phone as a pass through WiFi hotspot.
After a 17 day cruise with transatlantic crossing, I am happy to report that the functions I hoped would work were all successful. The Android WiFi pass through was flawless and provided a reliable hot spot with expected speeds and connectivity. I set up both of our iPhone 14 Pro Max' on IMS function in foreign ports and they tested and worked perfectly for both US calls and calls to each other while roaming internationally. I have been reviewing my T-Mobile Data Usage. It reports nothing but WiFi calling with two exceptions to local numbers in Barcelona as I expected. Shipboard WiFi calling was also quite good, even at the slow WiFi service in the middle of the 6 day Atlantic crossing. T-Mobile does not reliably allow account login outside the general North American region, so I could not check my usage stats once we began our crossing. I had some 20-30 minute chats with tech support over WiFi while at sea with no charges. Also, on the ship we could call each other for free due to our unlimited WiFi data packages. Be certain you are on WiFi only for this however, for the calls are free on WiFi, $6 a minute on the ships cellular service!
For other T-Mobile users with the 5 Gb, free high speed international data roaming service, I see that the international data use DOES NOT count against your regular data plan. I saw this effect using my phone in Mexico then other nations whle traveling this past January. The high speed 5 Gb Mexico roaming service is independent of the international 5 Gb data bucket. This bookkeeping method saves my main voice line the Kickback $10 @<2 Gb reward, while allowing each number a full 5Gb of high speed international roaming service. This is actually a pretty big deal to me, since I have often touted using a dual sim second line for data roaming while keeping your main line active for calling & texts. I now can count on having the free 5 Gb int. roaming data for each of the dual sims in my daily driver while overseas. So, I end up with 10 Gb of high speed data roaming per billing period.
Try using VPN and see if you can access your TMO account outside of North America. I've been able to access mine from Canada and Europe. Silly me forgot to test this out in Singapore despite flying SFO-SIN many times last year.
TMO called me while I was in SIN to ask about my experience with them. They assured me the call would be free, but when got home, I saw a LD charge for picking up the call. I called TMO and they removed it after they verified it was a TMO call.
I think we discussed this in the past. I don't see a separate data counter for international or Canada/Mexico. I see everything lumped together. Therefore it's hard to tell what my usage is like. My domestic usage is well below what Magenta Max allows. I'm more worried about international usage than domestic.
Originally Posted by
Need
Does your cruise have Starlink? My cruise in 3 weeks has Starlink and according to reports, it should have about 5Mbps speed. Not fast comparing to land side but fast enough for normal usage. And the T-Mobile 5Gb is per billing cycle, not per month. So, if your trip date crosses over your billing cycle end date, your 5Gb gets to start over! Unfortunately, my next 3-week trip ends in 1 day after my billing cycle ends LOL.
I am wondering if I don't put my T-Mobile on airplane mode while on the cruise, would I be charged with a ship cellular charge? I read on forums that when they got a cruise, they actually got a TXT saying that it is free. I have cruise WiFi, so putting phone on airplane mode while sailing would be fine, but there are lots of shore days that I need to turn off airplane mode. I am just afraid that I forgot to turn airplane mode back on when got back to the ship one evening and get a huge ship cellular charge overnight sailing.
How do I figure out the date for my billing cycle? I only know the due date, which is the first of each month. I changed it to make it easy to remember when my bill is due.