LOL

While the cheapest deal in the competition is $20K/G without data package, $120/800MB with, do you seriously thing a lot of people are going to be complaining about FREE but slow data, plus $50ish upgrades?

I took my Moto 4G LTE to Ireland over the weekend and had no problems at all. When I landed at Shannon (SNN), I automatically linked up to Vodafone and I would estimate the speeds to be 3G. Sadly, by the time I arrived in Limerick, about 25km away, I was only able to link up with Three and the speeds were only 2G. That being said, with a little patience I was able to load up Google Maps, find a local destination, and after about a minute the route was fully loaded and Maps worked just fine.

Ok, so....

Thinking about switching from ATT to T-Mobile solely because of their international data plans ("unlimited data in 120+ countries").

Let me start by saying: I love ATT in the US. That being said, their international data plans are a joke. I ended up unlocking my phone because it's easier/cheaper to use SIMs than to pay for text ($30), data ($60), and call ($30).

Regions I travel to often: Sicily, Netherlands, SE Asia, S. America.

Travel coming up: Egypt, Thailand, potentially Iran.

Anyone have experience switching from ATT to T Mobile? Any specific issues?

My main concern is I'd be losing my grandfathered status for unlimited domestic data....

EDITS:

1) Phone: iPhone 5S

2) Not obsessed with "fast" data...just need basics, i.e. email, iMessage, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and occasional web browsing. Every so often I need to use Google Maps....

I'd suggest you test out the coverage first. Especially out side of major metropolitan areas, tmobile does not have anywhere near the coverage that AT&T has. Buy a prepaid sim and see if it works for you where you need it.

Or just sign up for their simple choice plan and test for one month -- there is no contract so can bail out anytime. If you time it right, do it just before you go abroad and take advantage of their global coverage!

Thanks for the above two suggestions. Good idea.

Normally I'm perfectly fine with a SIM exchange, but more often than not, I need a SIM to call back to the US...not to communicate w/ locals. This is getting hard to find, for me at least. I.E., at Vodafone in Sicily, I simply couldn't find a SIM to call the US. Stuck w/ an Italian SIM for 9 days.

If you're typically buying a local SIM anyway, they usually have free (or very cheap) incoming calls. Just use something like the Google Voice app to initiate the call to the US and it will call your local SIM number to connect - very cheap or free, and will only use a tiny amount of data for the app.

Japan: Data worked on 'JP DOCOMO', texting did not.
Bangkok: Data/Texting worked OK on "TH GSM", switched to DTAC and coverage and speeds much better.

I've been using data in Bangkok (iPhone) for approximately one month. I've been auto switched from TH GSM to AIS to dtac every 7-10 days during that timeframe, with all three providing excellent coverage, and acceptable speeds for my purposes.

Not really using it for voice calls, so can't comment on that.

Just spent 3 days in Ho Chi Minh City and linked up with Vinaphone. Speeds were acceptable and in the 2G range. I received one call from the USA and it came through crystal clear. My friends were very jealous, T-Mo might be getting 2 more subscribers.

The only time I was switched was from 'dtac' to 'DTAC'... don't know if it makes any difference other than cosmetics (maybe different cell site?).

Now, I'm in singapore.... no outbound text... glacial data.

I just got back from Scandinavia. Been with Sprint for years on prepaid, but went to TMo Post Paid with the new iPad (after Verizon wouldn't move my account from the old iPad that died to the new one - yes it's $30 for the month of "double coverage", but I was getting ticked off at Verizon's support of late...) and moved my voice line to TMo too and haven't looked back.

I had no problems traveling - had coverage nearly everywhere (except out in the hills north of Stockholm, which I wouldn't expect to have coverage, as there weren't a whole lot of people either...). Services was slow compared to LTE at home, but worked perfectly well for Facebook, email, and short web surfing (wish more web developers would offer a basic smartphone web interface - with the option to go to the full site - that isn't graphics/plug-in heavy). Apple Maps & Google Maps loaded fairly quickly and didn't need to purchase a GPS unit (was thinking about picking one up, as we were going to be driving to familial home towns in Denmark and Sweden that were off the beaten track).

Also, I needed to contact United Airlines to change a flight reservation, and was able to call the 1-800 number (not free, but just airtime) with no problem. (I had a prepaid SIM, and the call to the US just blew through the balance in 7 minutes...) SMS worked flawlessly.

Thumbs up!!! Probably would have purchased a data package for the iPad, but already had a SIM in Sweden with 500MB of data that offered LTE service.

(Bad news is that I lost the TMo nano-SIM, so I'm off to the TMo store to replace...).

J

Too bad their app. doesn't have some kind of a chat function.

You'd think it would be cheaper for them to take an online chat "call" rather than a phone call.

I got a hotspot just for this and have used it successfully in 10-15 countries in the past 9 months. Sprint still doesn't have LTE where I live, so rather than paying for the T-Mobile hotspot for use abroad plus the Sprint bill for absurdly slow data domestically, I'm going to ditch Sprint after 15 years and just go with T-Mobile for everything. I don't even do anything data intensive domestically, but Sprint is years behind T-Mobile's LTE deployment. Yes, I know T-Mobile doesn't have great coverage in places I'll never be.

You can swap the sim via an online form http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4677 so I just get a backup sim when they're running the $0.01/sim specials instead of paying the store $10.

Used in Italy mostly on TIM for data. It also happened to connect to 3 but lost the signal after a bit and reconnected to TIM.

Greece- Cosmote for data.