paperwastage

http://www.verizonwireless.com/landi...tional-travel/

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015...ing-data-plan/

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300177458.html

Guess it's better than T-mobile for short trips (full speed), but not for longer trips. competition is good for us consumers...

$5/day for Mexico/canada (t-mobile offers full highspeed data/voice/text in Mexico/Canada on their latest plans)

$10/day for other 140 countries (T-mobile offers free 2G data in some overlapping countries, paid high-speed passes at rates below)
Single-day pass: $15 for 100MB
7 day-pass: $25 for 200MB
14-day pass: $50 for 500MB

gfunkdave

Competition is indeed good for us average Gfunks!

dtsm

Why the differential btw Canada/Mexico and the other 65 countries?

Vz's offer isn't very appealing, POV.

bchandler02

It's a heck of alot better than their old packages, that's for sure. I agree that for some trips it is a fair value, others not so much.

I haven't been able to find any info on their site or any of the announcements - it says your domestic minutes follow you - so does that mean foreign calling back to US is included, but foreign calling locally in the country you pay LD charges? I need to see some more details before I decide if I am going to use this or a local SIM in the future.

mikel51

For us ATTers, hopefully they will follow suit.....or one up VZ

Kagehitokiri

does it work on monthly prepaid plans, with no overages, paying in cash?

paperwastage

according to a rep, it covers calls back to USA and calls within the foreign country you are in. Doesn't cover calls to other foreign countries

I guess we'll get more details

boberonicus

I like the look of this plan. $10/day addresses my need for data on short business trips. I would definitely reconsider the hassle of buying a (roughly $30) SIM for, say, a 4-5 day international trip. If I was overseas for a week or more, I'd probably still skip this and get a SIM card.

And for Canada and Mexico, it's really nice; the SIM break even point would something like two weeks!

bchandler02

Thanks. I've been meaning to call in. I also need to figure out if my 19% employee discount applies to this. If it does, that's $8.10 a day.
If it covers both calls back to the USA, texts to/from the USA, and local calls & texts in the country I am in, then that's great.

I spent 5 days in Aruba recently and used their $25/100mb package since I didn't plan to stay on the phone much. I didn't want to deal with a local SIM for a short trip with little usage. This would have been $$40.50 assuming I get my discount, with nearly unlimited usage. That's not bad.

Now, on my upcoming trip to Ireland, I'll be there 12 days. Since Three swallowed up o2, I decided this was a good time to swap over to Meteor anyway. Their unlimited plan is EUR30 (currently about $32). The Verizon deal (assuming again I get my discount) would be $97.20. I have a 5 hour layover in LHR, and that would have required either not using my phone there, or buying the $25 VzW plan in addition to the Meteor SIM, so now I'm at about $55.

I think I'll stick with local SIMs on longer trips, but this would be a great option for shorter trips, trips with multiple countries where buying SIMs isnt practical, or those that need to keep their same number and don't want to deal with Google Voice/etc.

bchandler02

Ok, so I just called. First, employer discounts do NOT apply to this, so the price is $10 no matter what.

Second, the rep confirmed that calls and texts are included if they are FROM an approved country to the USA, or from that country within that country. If you are in 1 country and call another, you pay as you would from the USA (LD charges).

Therefore, the only risk for "overage" is if you exceed your data plan, or you call/text from USA to Foreign, or Foreign 1 to Foreign 2.

You need to enable it on your account, but it can be done at any time - you aren't billed unless you use it. No need to add and remove it as with the old plans.

In my case above, this will fill the gap nicely while I'm in LHR and until I get to the Meteor store to get the new SIM. Then I'll switch over for the rest of the trip.. so $32 + $10 isnt that bad for 2 weeks of virtually unlimited usage.

BobbySteel

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry8700c: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 9_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) CriOS/46.0.2490.73 Mobile/13A342 Safari/600.1.4)

Wonder how this overlays w grandfathered global data plans? I can't give up global data for the obscure countries it works in but would love this for Canada...

bchandler02

I'd hold onto that forever. Worst thing I ever did was let that go, since I primarily use data, and minimal voice and text.

ajGoes

I was pleasantly surprised to discover after a recent trip to Canada that the cost is pro-rated. I turned the Canada/Mexico plan on only for the days I was in Canada and that was all I was billed for.

alchemista

They pro-rated me the first time I used it, but then the second time I called about the monthly plan, they said they no longer pro-rate it and I would be charged the full month no matter how long I used it. 100MB of data is ridiculous anyway - I had to install app data limiters and make sure to monitor my phone all the time to not exceed the data.

alchemista

From the discussion so far, this is still the best deal in these scenarios:

1. Travel internationally for a few days. How many days depends on your preference. There is cost to finding, buying, activating a local SIM card. If the cost of a local SIM and the value of your time is greater than the cost of this $2/day or $10/day over your trip, then this is the best deal.

2. Travel to multiple countries in a trip. The more countries you need to visit, the better this becomes.

3. Keeping your current # and plan active all the time during travel. This is important for those of us who need to still receive business calls, or any other must-answer calls. It can matter for those using sites or apps that require 2-factor authentication to your non-GV cell phone #. BTW - Google Voice #s won't ring your phone when you are on a foreign SIM, so you're not going to receive calls. Making calls would be OK with GVoice.

This seems to always be the best deal if #1 is the only issue. However, depending on how much #2 and #3 matter to you, this can be the best deal for more cases.

If you're already a T-Mobile subscriber, then their free 2g (and maybe 3g?) service may be sufficient for you. If you're not a TMo subscriber, it's not worth switching carriers for an occasional international trip.

btw - I also noticed that some countries (someone said Colombia) don't allow foreigners to buy local SIM cards on a local carrier. Their laws/regulations require you to be a resident and show local income. That would eliminate the local SIM option.