Is 128 kbps good enough for checking emails, receiving iMessage texts and some browsing?

Yes perfectly fine, I'm even using it quite often for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other posts. Fine for Google Maps and navigation (avoid Sat imagery)

Use it for everything from the above social media apps + Google Photos for backup, Use a host load of travel apps (airline check in, hotel apps, etc). Only ones that will be a problem are those doing Video streaming.

I've done probably 100 international trips since this started (128Kb/sec) - I did the high speed data optional data packs the first few trips then figured the few times I used them was a waste as I only needed a bit higher speed for an hour or so. Now I just have a cheap Boingo Mobile account (9.95 a month) and in MANY places I jump on that for high speed. More recently with the 256Kb/sec change if you added one of the One Plus I feel limited need to do the WiFi also - yes it's not as fast as WiFi but more usable

So the regular ONE plan is fine? No need for the ONE Plus or ONE Plus International?

I wouldn't expect to do a lot of surfing and email on it.

Make sure your hotel has good wifi.

I just want to make sure it's usable in the aircraft right after landing and taxiing. But mostly I'll be inside the terminal so I'll be mostly on WiFi. But there are times where I would just get disconnected randomly. And WiFi in the Philippines is not that great.

Well this T-Mobile roaming depends on how good the foreign carrier is.

So you may not get such great performance in the Philippines.

There are times when web pages load fast at 128 kbps and other times it can be a slog.

Perfectly fine for getting off a plane and using it immediately.

Look at the Wiki in this article and manually select the network that has LTE support for the best experience. It will be throttled but generally not as bad latency - which will make it feel very usable.

Where do you go that you get such a bad experience? It doesn't replace a high speed connection but for on the go it's just fine as long as you don't do streaming video. Also it doesn't address a general congestion issue on the local network. A few times I've seen bad performance, my co-workers with local SIM's on the same network report it's slow for them also. So local congestion issues can apply and have little to do with TMO's roaming capability.

Regular One Plan is just 128Kb/sec - you *CAN* add the $5 One Plus with GoGo if you missed adding the promo plan - then REMOVE it when you get back. Suggest you do that - that will give you 256Kb/sec

I don't recall where but there's definitely a difference in perceived speed -- they all speediest the same -- on some roaming networks vs. others.

If you were recalling Philippines in that - I've been in areas outside Cebu where I've fallen back to GSM/EDGE on the partner network. The R indicator on most phones won't catch that. I use Android so now when roaming I generally force the phone to LTE Only or HSPA/LTE and it avoids fallback to 2G which I will agree is unusable for data roaming. Manually forcing to HSPA in that case got be back to usable, so assuming phone baseband radio for some reason locked on 2G and stopped scanning to move back to HSPA or LTE.

No it's some European networks.

IIRC, it wasn't great in Argentina either.

Thanks. No need to call customer service and tell them where I'll be going?

I followed the wiki and "Block charge international roaming" is set to ON while "Ensure Block International Roaming" is set to OFF.

No need to call as long as you are POSTPAID and on a Simple Choice or T-Mobile One Plan - roaming is automatic on those. Just ensure you have data roaming on in your phone.

Ahh.... thanks so much for the detailed info - I only have a primary line which explains why it doesn't work for me :( However, tech digit support (such as it is) says data doesn't work on a digits line while roaming- but they say they are getting updates every day and they IMHO really don't know exactly what is going on from moment to moment only b/c tmo isn't exactly keeping up. Should be interesting (NOT) when it goes live

Do new subscribers to the One plans automatically get 256k roaming now without doing anything or is it back to 128k now that the promotion is over?

Go to my.t-mobile.com, login then click on the plan tab.

Look at the line in question, under Data Service a "One Plus Promo" item should be listed - if you missed the promo time to add then, click Manage Data Options and add the $5 plan - you can remove it later after your trip.

See image of what this should look like:

http://imgur.com/ADRSkOt.png

If ANY of the One Plus add ons are listed included the previously free promo one you will get 256Kb/sec data. If they aren't you will default to 128Kb/sec