MDWCommuter

Can you elaborate? I've got until 9/10 to back out of the Kickstarter campaign for the G2

freecia

Feel at Home is for specific countries, not any EU country.
http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Euro3

It currently includes several non-EU countries

tlvancouver

My husband is traveling in the US and Greece, I set it up here in Canada and it worked but he has not been able to get a connection his entire trip

There's not much to connecting to a wifi connection, so there's not a lot of "operator error" concerns. It simply won't show up in the wifi listings (perhaps it's not finding a network), but it's been useless.

Wozza2404

I know. OP was specifically talking about EU countries, hence me saying that it works in any EU country in their "feel at home" programme.

mikel51

I ordered a sim with 1Gig of data, suitable for a tablet from and eBay seller. I will have to cut it from micro to nano format. I did also ordered a G2, which I hope will arrive before my trip--I can always use the Three mobile sim in the G2 to extract the gig of data (seemed like a good deal for 10 pounds).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191362518885...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

M

tlvancouver

Update, we bought this and it DOES NOT WORK in US, France or Greece (all listed as available and covered under the "global" package we bought. Absolutely useless.

kinimodb

T-Mobile US now offers free roaming worldwide limited to 128kbit/s (16KB/s). Not fast but enough to do email, send messages, open Google Maps.

Then, optionally, each $50 buys 500MB of full speed data, which is the best worldwide roaming rate you can get, pretty much. 10 cents per MB is a great deal. You can keep buying the 500MB package as needed. They also have smaller ones if you need.

mrcamp

Is it worldwide now? I thought it was most countries, but not all. 125 countries I believe. Nevertheless, still an awesome deal from T-Mobile.

MDWCommuter

Well, I blinked and cancelled my Kickstarter before the cutoff date. Ultimately I could never find consistent reviews for the G1, most people who complained had the problem you've described here. And maybe the G2 will be a better product, but I don't want my around the world trip to be where I find out that it isn't.

So I'm back to plan B which is to buy an unlocked mifi and buy SIM cards along the way. The deciding factor was that most trips we take aren't around the world, so while it will be a pain to find SIMs on this one trip, most trips will be a matter of finding one or two SIMs, which is much less of a hassle.

wco81

I would look at prices for an iPad mini 2 or mini 3 with cellular, if you find unlocked mifi devices are too expensive.

I think I paid about $100 for my Huawei some years ago. It's only 3G and it doesn't even support 3G in the US, only in Europe and probably Asia.

Battery life is poor, though the batteries can be swapped out and they're cheap. But configuring it is a hassle (you have to connect by Wifi and use a browser for the admin page to change the APN each time you switch SIMs).

Meanwhile, iPad mini 2 and newer (and full size iPads with cellular) support all the LTE bands all over the world (I've mostly tested in Europe as well as use it in the US).

Thing is the battery life is much better than any Mifi, and it's not that big heavy to throw in a bag. A mifi can fit in a pocket with your phone but you're more likely to put it in some bag.

Maybe after Apple introduces new iPads, either tomorrow or over the next month, you can find deals on iPad mini 2s with LTE.

MDWCommuter

An elegant solution. But what is the cost of the data? If you're using AT&T in the U.S., aren't you paying their data roaming rates? Also, can you set it up as a hotspot so travel companions can use the internet?

freecia

I lean towards Android when choosing a travel specific phone/tablet if I will be picking up sims as I go. Apple iPad Air 2 has excellent LTE band support but relies on carriers enabling tethering profiles to allow hotspot/wifi sharing. It also doesn't support sms which some mifi and Android tablets running 4.2 do and can save angst to (de)activate data packages via sms. There are also several mid-priced android phablets. Lastly, my experience is that micro sims are easier to find than nano sims. If you're careful, a nano sim in an adapter is easier to pack than a chunky sim cutter.

If you want LTE, you need
a) ATT roaming (they officially support LTE roaming in certain countries) or local sim which offers plans with LTE
b) wifi device with large set of LTE bands for RTW

http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.c..._common_phones
LTE Bands used by country and carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks
Tablet LTE search http://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3?mode=tablet

If you're happy with 3G, that will lower the cost and open up a lot of options. Just get an unlocked pentaband 3G phone/phablet/tablet.

Google Fi and T-Mobile post-pay both offer good lower cost roaming data options if you can live with the reduced speeds or buying speed pass (T-Mo) which is still likely to be slower than most un-throttled local prepaid sims. Google Fi is currently supported on Nexus 6 and rumors say the new Nexus devices will be released in the coming month or so. T-Mobile is nice in that if you already have an unlocked phone with quad or penta band support, you basically just need the account & sim card. You can also put it in a dual sim phone to get phone/sms at the Tmobile number and pop in a local sim as needed for faster data (aka when it is worth picking up a local sim)

shonamac

Where in the US or Europe (Paris, London, Munich) can one buy an unlocked Mi-Fi device without paying an exorbitant price?

wco81

It appears most Android devices sold in the US do not include LTE bands for Europe and Asia. Often, as is the case with the Nexus and Samsung phones, there is a US SKU with specific LTE support and then a rest of the world SKU, with a different set of LTE bands.

You can't even buy the latter unless you import.

iOS have all the LTE bands for both US and Europe/Asia support.

As for tethering, I've never had problems and I've used SIMs in France, UK, Italy and Belgium.

What is tricky is that they don't always have nano SIMs at stores. But if they have a nano SIM, they often have a prepaid product targeted for tablets/iPads as opposed to phones. Often this means no voice minutes, just data.

A smartphone specific plan may have tethering limitations but typically, that means a separate APN and login/password.

In most cases, these SIMs self-configure so I never had to enter the APN. But in Belgium with BASE, I had to enter the APN and the login/password from the prepaid Wiki site and had to enter those values for the Hotspot section as well.

wco81

I have a data-only T-mobile SIM, which is 1 GB in the US for $20 a month.

I can roam with their Simple Choice plan which gives 128 kbps. Slow but still lets you hit the ground running. It will take awhile for Google Maps to first load the tiles for your location.

But this is what I use for shorter stays in a country, if I'm moving to 2 or more countries every few days.

For longer stays, I will find a local prepaid SIM, usually spend €20 or less, for 1 or 2 GB of data.