I'm assuming many people saw this:

https://onemileatatime.com/im-fallin...with-t-mobile/

I have to echo the sentiment (as do tons of the comments there): it is very, very burdensome to activate these international high-speed plans.

I can't believe T-Mo can't just send me a text saying "You're roaming. Want the package of higher speed and talk minutes? Text back 'y'"

Then, when that day expires "Want another day of $5 roaming? Text 'y' again and you'll be all set."

They really need to clean this up.

And, I'd still prefer the old 10 days/1 GB package.

$5 for 500 MB of data?

Why would anyone want to activate that?

It's international high-speed data.

I'm fine activating and paying for that, but I'd like it to be easy.

If you have to take calls on your US number, I guess that makes sense.

Or your phone is still locked to T-Mobile.

Or both.

I was paying about 2.50 a day for unlimited high-speed data in Switzerland in August, though it didn't include calls. I used the hell out of that service.

That is why I am so looking fwd to the dual SIM option on the iPhone Xs -- My home T-Mobile on the eSIM and what ever local SIM I have with a good data plan -I have live SIMS for Germany and UK and have bought throw aways in other countries (for a 2nd phone I carry along)

Depending on how widespread WiFi is I've gotten by on the 2G data and bought the $10 pass when I got frustrated. No way I'd go for $5/day unless a special situation where I have connect back to my home computer/client's server for emergency work.

First of all eSIM isn't widely supported yet. I don't know how it benefits the carriers who sell prepaid data to support eSIM.

I've often been disappointed by hotel wifi. It often gets congested or it's slow to begin with.

So if I can find SIM deals with a lot of data, I'll buy that. I spent about $41 over a 2.5 week trip in Switzerland on data SIM and used up like 96 GB of data. A lot of the times, I would check the hotel wifi speed and most of the time, the 4G data on Sunrise was often faster, even in alpine villages, though those are well-known, popular tourist destinations. So I tethered all my devices to my iPad with the SIM, downloaded and streamed a lot of video, including on a laptop.

Why would it matter to them whether prepaid service is provisioned on a physical SIM card or an eSIM?

Well for one thing, a lot of them sell SIM kits and collect money from you at the point of purchase.

In a lot of cases, they include a certain amount of credit so when you purchase a SIM for 10 Euros, it might have 5 or 10 Euros of credit to activate.

But it's a guaranteed way to book revenues on a sale.

In any event, I looked at the eSIM on my iPad Pro. Only a handful of options in different countries and the cost way way more than I would pay if I just go buy a SIM and activate a data bundle directly.

So I've never used the eSIM, just popped in a physical nano SIM.

Greetings from Baku. Air Azerbaijan sells local SIM cards and 3g modems as part of their onboard duty free sales. First time I saw that. I've seen roaming SIMs before, but I thought local SIMs was a great idea. I was a dual SIM iPhone but am still struggling with this offering.

No expense for the actual SIM, and therefore, the ability to sell these online or printed out of a kiosk.

Then the cost of the now defunct SIM card becomes an 'activation fee'.... With no cost to the carrier for the physical SIM, they keep 100% as profit.... Also no waiting for it to come in the mail and/ or it can be distributed electronically lowering the cost for them even more...

Just returned from the Grand Canyon. I know it's not international, but since the thread is about "global data coverage" I figure it qualifies.

I did not know that I could or would need to roam in the US.

I can and did.

I did not know that there was a limit on my US roaming.

There is.

It's 50 MB under my plan.

If you land in a foreign country, you get a text about roaming.

Not so if you roam domestically. My first indication was a text warning me that I had used 80% of my roaming data, followed seconds later by a text that I had used all of my roaming data. Thank you. Good bye!

And I can buy another 50 MB for $15!

Right - 3x the international price for one-tenth of the data.

This really sucked.

https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-3299

Free international roaming relates to billing. It has nothing to do with whether your device will actually function in any particular market. In this case, if your device has the appropriate bands then you can roam in Europe and T-Mobile will not charge you for text messages and data. :eek:therwise you're not going to be able to roam at all. FWIW, Mrs. Xyzzy's iphone 6 works fine in Europe.