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Anyone here know whether the Global Plus plan is subject to T-Mobile's policy on "extreme roaming" (using 50% or more of a month's data overseas)? That is the biggest deal killer to me about ONE Plus and any of their roaming add ons, the limitation makes it infeasible for me.
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Originally Posted by tangfish
(Post 30464963)
Anyone here know whether the Global Plus plan is subject to T-Mobile's policy on "extreme roaming" (using 50% or more of a month's data overseas)? That is the biggest deal killer to me about ONE Plus and any of their roaming add ons, the limitation makes it infeasible for me.
FYI the unlimited global plan is no longer offerrd. It seems those who signed up when it was announced are grandfathered in. The new plan is called Global Plus 15Gb which offers 15Gb of high speed roaming for the same $50/month. 15Gb is a lot....but depending on your usage pattern this change may be a dealbreaker. |
Originally Posted by LordHamster
(Post 30470361)
not sure on that. According to the TOS it seems the same restriction applies, albeit at this price point they may be more lenient in practice. This is NOT meant to be an unlimited plan for someone residing full time in say Canada. I think it is more for typical flyertalkers who are frequent travelers but return stateside at least once a month. YMMV There's a lot of confusion about what constitutes a violation of their policy on roaming, but I called the Extreme Roaming department and got some concrete info. If in any three billing cycles in a rolling 12 month period the user uses 50% or more data off network (i.e., outside the US) then that line of service will be terminated and the number in likelihood would be lost. Because it's a % and not a data amount, then for instance receiving even a single iMessage while overseas, in the absence of usage in the US in that billing cycle, would count as a strike. You get two strikes and on the third, you're out. This is not a big deal to people who travel for a week here and there, but for someone who spends some number of months outside the US per year, it can be a tricky game of tapdance to play with billing cycles and such. Not worth the benefits if you ask me, given the risk of permanently losing a phone number.
Originally Posted by LordHamster
(Post 30470361)
FYI the unlimited global plan is no longer offerrd. It seems those who signed up when it was announced are grandfathered in. The new plan is called Global Plus 15Gb which offers 15Gb of high speed roaming for the same $50/month. 15Gb is a lot....but depending on your usage pattern this change may be a dealbreaker.
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The $5/day plan is such a pain that on my next trip, I think I'll try a local eSIM. Even if there's no dollar savings, I'll save the 20 minutes it sometimes takes on the crawling data plan that's included, to get to the place where I can give Tmo more money.
I took a cab from the Hong Kong airport to Shenzhen, and I finally got the plan added just as we got to the border train. I think that was more like 40 minutes. You'd think they'd have a way to make the Tmo app and the website work at full-speed, even without a high speed plan . . . |
Originally Posted by Michael Ad
(Post 30473287)
The $5/day plan is such a pain that on my next trip, I think I'll try a local eSIM. Even if there's no dollar savings, I'll save the 20 minutes it sometimes takes on the crawling data plan that's included, to get to the place where I can give Tmo more money.
I took a cab from the Hong Kong airport to Shenzhen, and I finally got the plan added just as we got to the border train. I think that was more like 40 minutes. You'd think they'd have a way to make the Tmo app and the website work at full-speed, even without a high speed plan . . . Or just make the day passes work like AT&T. If you enable the option, you get auto-billed the fee every day you are actually roaming... rather than having to log in constantly to re-apply. |
Originally Posted by tangfish
(Post 30472667)
Because it's a % and not a data amount, then for instance receiving even a single iMessage while overseas, in the absence of usage in the US in that billing cycle, would count as a strike. You get two strikes and on the third, you're out. This is not a big deal to people who travel for a week here and there, but for someone who spends some number of months outside the US per year, it can be a tricky game of tapdance to play with billing cycles and such.
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Originally Posted by tangfish
(Post 30472667)
There's a lot of confusion about what constitutes a violation of their policy on roaming, but I called the Extreme Roaming department and got some concrete info. If in any three billing cycles in a rolling 12 month period the user uses 50% or more data off network (i.e., outside the US) then that line of service will be terminated and the number in likelihood would be lost. Because it's a % and not a data amount, then for instance receiving even a single iMessage while overseas, in the absence of usage in the US in that billing cycle, would count as a strike. You get two strikes and on the third, you're out. This is not a big deal to people who travel for a week here and there, but for someone who spends some number of months outside the US per year, it can be a tricky game of tapdance to play with billing cycles and such. Not worth the benefits if you ask me, given the risk of permanently losing a phone number.
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Originally Posted by Xyzzy
(Post 30474841)
I've got over 10 lines on a business plan in the US. One device is out of the US more than 95% of the time. It's used for occasional incoming text messages and some data, but not much. We've never heard a peep from TM:eek: about it and it's been functioning for a couple of years like this.
I just hope that they are more reasonable with Global Plus folks. For my past few months, I've been abroad more than home. Out of the country 3 weeks (across different countries) then home 1 week. While home, I'm almost always on wifi... thus not using much data. I feel like I'm the perfect use-case for Global Plus. I travel frequently enough to need roaming, but never in any one country long enough to want the hassle of hunting down a local SIM. If my scenario would cause auto-termination, I can't imagine WHO they created the Global Plus plan for. Regardless, now that Project FI is rumored to be allowing iPhone users to be supported, I may migrate myself and wife back to Project Fi anyway. One more update Re: Global Plus. So far I'm still pretty thrilled with it (despite it being relatively expensive). I'm in southern India this week and am roaming here on Vodafone India, and getting the same speeds as my local colleagues on their local vodafone in sims. Update #2 : Just found out that Project FI for iPhone and non-google Android phones is official! https://www.blog.google/products/pro...droid-and-ios/ This should give as good alternative to the Flyertalk demographic. Plus rides on the T-mobile network. |
Originally Posted by LordHamster
(Post 30475321)
Yeah, the simple percentage calculation doesn't make much sense. Pure conjecture, but my guess is that data volumes must figure into it somehow... else, I could roam 29 days a month, then come home and binge watch breaking bad season 1 on my phone in 4K, and not have an issue. Perhaps I'm overthinking it.
You could binge like crazy 30GB of data over one month and then spend the next 6 months overseas using 2GB every month and you'd still be "legal." |
For what it's worth, I got it from the horse's mouth (t-mo extreme roaming department) that data volumes DO NOT factor into it. It is truly a % calculation regardless of volume, which really sucks. Even 1 iMessage in the absence of domestic on-network data would trigger one "strike" toward your line being cut off and number being lost. I brought up multiple examples of why this doesn't make any practical sense to the rep, and she said she agreed but that it was this way because of the roaming agreements they have with other carriers; tmo customers MUST have their "primary" usage on their own network and in their own country to be considered within bounds of those agreements. I told her they need to renegotiate and she said they would likely take a look at this next time the contracts are up for renewal. I ended up doing one of the ridiculous scenarios I ran by her, since I'd used a little roaming data in a particular bill cycle and returned to the US with just two days left, I turned of wifi and just let some high def video run with the volume down for many hours overnight, making sure I ate up enough data to be in the clear. Not sure who compliance with this rule helps, when it makes you have to do ridiculous things like that!
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Anyone try Vietnam after they added it back last year? I'm buying a pass for Singapore, HK, and Japan so if it works in Vietnam that would be great so I don't have to buy a separate sim.
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I'm glad the extreme roaming folks at t-mo aren't paying attention then. Been using the free global coverage since they started offering it (still have my grandfathered $50 simple choice plan) and for three years of that worked 28 day rotations in Europe and Africa. 100% of my data those months was used on roaming, and never heard anything from t-mo.
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Does anyone know of a good way to park a TMO number while out of the country for a while? I'm currently on an old Simple Choice plan with global roaming but I'm in New Zealand for the next four months. I'm using a local SIM as my primary but I definitely don't want to use my US phone number and I still want to be able to receive text messages on it while in NZ.
I wonder if I could downgrade to a prepaid TMO plan and just pay per SMS? I don't expect many, it's mostly for accounts that use that number for 2FA. |
Originally Posted by txflyer77
(Post 31315216)
Does anyone know of a good way to park a TMO number while out of the country for a while? I'm currently on an old Simple Choice plan with global roaming but I'm in New Zealand for the next four months. I'm using a local SIM as my primary but I definitely don't want to use my US phone number and I still want to be able to receive text messages on it while in NZ.
I wonder if I could downgrade to a prepaid TMO plan and just pay per SMS? I don't expect many, it's mostly for accounts that use that number for 2FA. |
That Google Voice workaround looks pretty cool: https://lifehacker.com/how-to-sms-wi...-phone-5316921
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