Emails came in, so I'm not sure what hiccups it had, opening large attachments, forget it, took an eternity. Maps usually sucked away. Especially if you miss your exit and you need a fast recalculation....

I must say though their voice and sms rates are REALLY good, this wasn't available for biz accounts, so I'm a bit surprised here.

I don't see how they will be able to offer this in the long term, because I have a feeling that people will just switch for one month, come back after their trip. I'm considering going back to VZW, domestic coverage is more important than international for me. Their coverage SUCKS when traveling here.

Thanks for the input. Seems like it'll be fine for me just for the light browsing or using google maps to calculate distances for walking.

That was my reaction. Why would it be cheaper over mobile than wifi????

My thought is that if I went with a plan like this, I'd buy a good dual sim phone like the Samsung Galaxy S4 (or S4 mini) and put a keep a roaming SIM in tray 2 like Piranha which can be set to use ATT's network and has cheap data for when I was off the TMobile footprint. When I was in another country, the TMobile SIM would work for me most of the time and certainly until I could cop a local SIM. If I needed a few minutes of high speed data, a roaming SIM or their data bucket could work (particularly if you can order the data on demand).

It seems like there are an awful lot of excluded account types. I guess it all depends on your needs. But I am happy to only pay $30/month with one of their prepaid plans. So if I have to buy a prepaid SIM when I travel elsewhere and end up with money left on that card I still come out ahead albeit with the (minor) hassle of getting the SIM and setting it up.

Possibly because it is considered 'starting in the US' as that is the first cell company infrastructure it will hit? If they allow free texts over Wifi calling to other countries, they may not be able to tell when the text is being sent from within the US or out of the country, so they bill it at the highest rate, which would be as if it came from the US.

I don't think it's desperation. They were looking for a competitive advantage to counter their disadvantages - network footprint and speeds outside of metro areas - which impacts their profitability less than it would other carriers who try to match. T-Mo has fairly little international roaming revenue relative to ATT/VZW. This way they are not only getting people over to their service, they are doing something that the big two cannot match without significantly hurting their revenues.

Back in the day when it was the best daily option, I found tmobile's $2 daily prepaid with unlimited edge data sluggish but it did the trick for me when travelling in the states. Obviously no comparison to the ($3/day) 4g plan but if was fine with my limited expectations at the time. Really comes down to expectations on how the expectations are set IMO.

Funny I've been thinking about this plan for a few days now and it just occurred to me that FT would have a thread on it.

(Duh!)

Informative so far and I'm seriously considering it even with the 128mb speed.

I usually do the local sim cards (4 in my wallet right now) and then keep a vonage line going that I forward to whatever SIM I'm use... a solution that is too $$$ and a pain because sometimes it's 6 mos between vists and I have to go get a new SIM, etc

So it sounds like a real improvement.

But I'm a little unclear on all this discussion of WiFi calling and SMS.

Is there some sort of T-Mobile app that handles the VOIP? How does this relate to Skype (or Vonage)?

They're not actually counting minutes that I'm connected to Wifi, are they?

Also, good point raised up thread about Wifi sms being more expensive that network. Can't you tell your phone what to use?

I read some of the FAQs and discussions on their site, but I just think I'm still missing a piece of the puzzle here... how T-M interacts over Wifi.

Can anyone explain this?

TIA!

-R

Some phones have Wifi calling built in
It doesn't have anything to do with these.N:p.

Incorrect. Wifi calls, aka UMA, is charged to your bucket of minutes. Obviously, if you are on anunlimited plan, it's academic.

This is the wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_Access_Network

Essentially TMO marketed this many years back whereby you could make calls over wifi with specific phone models. Back then selected Nokia, Samsung and BB had UMA built-in, now it's expanded to variety of their Android phones. The advantages were two fold: in poor reception areas, you could piggyback onto a wifi to improve call quality; and for international travelers, free calls back to states without incurring international roaming charges.

For whatever reason, it was never widely marketed, other carriers didn't adopt it and not as well-known to general consumer [POV]. I keep an old BB 8820 that has this feature built-in. But with skype, line, wechat, etc., many other options for free international communications.

I know. The question was whether there was a charge for being connected to wifi not about actually using it for making calls on wifi. T-Mobile has been charging for calls made while connected to wifi for quite some time. That's n;)thing new.

I use TMO wifi almost all the time because I office at home and the tower reception is poor. Never billed for just being connected to wifi, just the calls.

In my experience they have never charged when I am out of the country using wife, other than for the actual minutes on the phone. I did this as recently as last month.

Following is an email message from my TMO Biz rep:

"T-Mobile just announced Simple Global with unlimited international messaging and 2G data for free in over 100 countries (that covers 95% of our international traffic). The voice roaming is a flat rate of $.20 each in all of those countries. This can save you thousands on roaming. However, this free and included feature is only available on our new Simple Choice plans, but they are better than the old ones. There are options for additional 4G data overseas.

The new Simple Choice plans are:

$40 unlimited voice minutes
$35 600 minutes
$30 300 minutes
$25 100 minutes

All plans include unlimited messaging and unlimited 2G data (with 500MB of 4G data). Hotspot/tethering is also included. Lines on BES has a $5 premium. You can stack all of them except the unlimited... meaning you can pool voice minutes and share among numbers in your account.

If you need more 4G data you can have 2.5 GB for $10 (smartphone) or $15 (BES) or 4.5 GB for $20 (smartphone) or $25 (BES). Hotspot/tethering is also included. Or we have unlimited 4G data for smartphone use with 2.5GB of hotspot for $20/$25. The same unlimited 4G data with 4.5GB of hotspot is $10 more and $20 more with 6.5 GB. These options would be mostly for iPhones, Android, and BB10 as they use more data.

Unlimited messaging is included in these plans both domestic and internationally. "

My bill will now get lower... on top of the Corporate discount through my employer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/te...oad.html?_r=1&

If anyone needs a hook-up to enjoy corporate pricing, just PM me.

I am out of US for up to 6 months continously or even 9 months. If I don't "abuse" it and say I use 500 mb to 1 GB of international data a month and 20 minutes call every month, I wonder if they will terminate or suspend my service? My company has corporate discount with T-Mobile as well.

Ok, thanks.

So this is really just T-Mobile offering an "a la carte" voip solution - just like skype, vonage Google talk, etc?

You have to launch it and choose it?