This is why God invented VPNs.

For anyone who was considering the Three UK sims from England that I just purchased, the price has gone back up to $10.91 each vs. the $9.45 when I posted about those I bought. So, with shipping they now are about $13.70 each instead of the $12.26 I paid. You can currently buy a different version on Amazon for $13.95 with 4Gb, Unlimited Voice & Text with one day shipping. However this version requires a different setup procedure that has the vendor doing the account credit to activate, so it's slightly more complicated to use. Here is a link to that product:

I�d be more concerned with what happens, or could happen, to roaming with a UK SIM post-Brexit.

will the EU telecoms continue to treat UK providers the same with the Roam Like You�re Home regulations, or will UK SIMs be hit with increases costs for roaming around the EU?

this is why I ended up buying an Orange SIM instead, because I couldn�t find an answer to that question. That said, I�ll also need to look into this one to see if or how well it works in Asia, particularly in Taiwan and South Korea.

As far as Three's concerned Brexit changes nothing:

Roaming and Brexit: what's the deal? | Hub | Three

Other operators are being less specific, but I suspect that they will keep things as they are now; in any case, the EU Directive will still apply until the end of the transition period, i.e. until 31/12/2020.

As it turns out, Speedtest on iOS recently put a VPN Beta in place in their app as an option. It looks like they are running a trial and so far I have used 9% of my allotted 2Gb. Below that info is also "Until Mar 26" so that's probably the end of testing for this version I assume. It does solve the issue with the UK sim not allowing a US service like Pandora to access the interwebs though.

I use a service called Express VPN. My wife and I travel to China regularly, and they are one of the most proactive services out there in bypassing the great firewall of china. However the service is also great for those times you want to access services you paid for whilst you are abroad.

Thanks for the referral, I am interested in seeing where the Ookla Beta version ends up. Fortunately my regular T-Mobile service seems to stream Pandora while I'm traveling, but I do plan on using the UK 3 PAYG on my next trip, so Express VPN might be a welcome option.

I'm on pay-monthly Three contract and get 'Roam Like You're Home' in the US, Australia and plenty of other places outside the EU so suspect it will stay but we'll see!

Not, however, to my annoyance, Canada!

Yes. I sort of assumed, and was proved expensively wrong!

Ah yes, forgot that one � teenage son went on a school trip to Canada last Easter, and forgot to turn roaming off for a few days

Google free france

It is a Travelsim which includes canada Turkey China russia and so on.

That depends on your circumstances. GiffGaff aren't great if you're a Pay As You Go (PAYG) customer who doesn't use many minutes or much data. I include myself in that description as I use very little of either as people generally call me and have wifi. PAYG rates if you don't buy a goodybag in the UK are very expensive compared to Three. https://www.giffgaff.com/pricing vs https://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Pay_As_You_Go
To keep costs down on GG you have to buy a goodybag starting at �6 to get all calls/SMS + 500MB. That expires though after 30days and you lose your data and minutes. With Three the credit doesn't expire so long as you make a call or use some data every 6 months.

The goodybags also don't work in Switzerland, Monaco, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Those are part of the 'rest of the world' countries. So you need to have airtime credit which will be depleted by 5p a text, 15p a minute and 20p per MB. So expect to pay �20.00 for 100MB. Going outside the EU (the point of this thread) say to the USA but excluding Hawaii and Alaska. It is still 20p/MB but calls both making & receiving are �1/minute. For data in Hawaii and Alaska you'll be paying 25 times that at �5 per MB On Three it's still* 3p/minute**, 2p/SMS** & 1p/MB in both States as well as the rest of the US.
*or out of your allowance if you've bought a top up etc.
**outgoing only - incoming is free.

Disclosure: I'm a Three 321 PAYG customer.

It's worse than that - on Feb 26th they increased their rates for texts to 10p & calls to 25p/min.

My wife & I are both very light PAYG users, so after several years with GiffGaff we've changed to Three - we know when we're not wanted! Having said that, I'm still using GiffGaff as I'm taking advantage of the fact that if you visit their online community you earn payback credits; my credit still stands at around �60 despite my not having paid a penny for over three years! We both have dual-SIM phones, so we're able to keep both SIMs active - GiffGaff is cheaper for some things.

We've also stopped the unlimited calls option on the landline, so all our outgoing calls are on mobiles as its cheaper. Then there's Skype! The upshot of all this is that I've had to set up a spreadsheet showing the cheapest option for all the calls we're likely to make!

Three UK and some of the other UK MSPs � probably to be followed by some UK MVNOs � seem to be changing their approach to pricing/roaming-related pricing. Not sure what the odds are to front-run before some of these changes to data roaming pricing hit, but it may be time to look into it.