Gaz

Hi all. This summer I headed to the UK for 8 weeks. This was a longer summer vacation than I'd normally take, but after 2 years of being at home in the US and not seeing any of my UK family, it was needed.

A month after returning, I received a message from T-Mobile telling me that I'd violated their T&Cs by roaming for 'several months', and they would be disabling roaming going forward. This felt a bit of a kick in the teeth, particularly considering I'd spent a fortune on high-speed data packs with them over the summer, rather than just using the free package.

Which US carrier best serves frequent travelers these days? I don't mind paying for it as long as I can get decently high speed data everywhere without getting cut off by the network. Would love to hear any experience of people who've taken extended trips using AT&T, Verizon, Google Fi or similar.

LordHamster

I rage-quit T-Mobile a while back because they sent me nastygrams about my roaming. I think the month I got my nastygram I had spent ~100mb domestic and ~110mb international while on the $50 15GB high speed roaming package. That month I was only overseas (UK) for one week!! Their algorithm doesn't look at actual usage of purchased packs, but rather if "most" aka >50% of your roaming is overseas for like 2 billing periods.

I've used FI for trips like yours and never had an issue or any warning messages. I'm not a real high-data user and I think FI's abuse algorithms are more geared towards high GB usage overseas rather than a simple percentage calculation. From what I've read in the FI subreddit on reddit, they seem to not threaten to cut you off before like 3 months abroad.

That said, honestly now that Airalo exists, the utility of FI or T-Mobile roaming packs is greatly reduced. On my next international trip I'll likely just buy Airalo Esims for data.

After trying every US carrier during the pandemic, I've finally landed on AT&T as they have the best data throughput in my home area...which I need for when my ISP craps out. They also have a pretty good roaming capability now. On AT&T their international day pass (while expensive at $10 + tax / day) is unlimited, so in theory I could go well over 15GB in a single day if I needed to. They have also capped this plan at no more than 10 days charged per billing cycle, so a max of $100+tax / cycle for completely unlimited high-speed data. Which while expensive is the ultimate in convenience. I'm new to AT&T so I don't know how aggressive their "abuse" policies are though.

Back to the topic at hand. After I got my nastygrams from T-Mobile and rage-canceled the service, I complained on Reddit. Many people told me it is easy to avoid the nastygrams and service cutoff by gaming their abuse algorithms. Simply use BOATLOADS of data while back in the US. If your domestic data usage is >50% then you won't trigger their abuse algorithm.

Need

Oh wow, this is the first time I have read an actual report of someone gotten cut off by T-Mobile. I got the warning text too, but not cut off. If you like T-mobile's high speed oversea, just switch to Google Fi. It uses the same network here in the states and I think same roaming partners oversea too. I only switched from Fi to T-Mobile because I stopped travelling. And you can actually put a Fi SIM into a locked T-Mobile phone here and it will still work because Fi uses T-Mobile network!

miket

Don’t bother with Intl plans. Get TruPhone or similar and pay go for international data. For a phone number setup a Google voice #. For US use what’s cheapest.

Error 601

They will give it back, just explain it was a once in a lifetime trip, prolonged family obligation or something like that.

paperwastage

best is to have a recent ipHone (they can route VoLTE calls from SIm1 over data connection of SIM2, even better than wifi calling)




US Mobile uses either Verizon (no wifi calling) or Tmobile( wifi calling possible), both should have VoLTE

their unlimited plans on eSIM include 1-10GB of int'l roaming. and you can pay more for additional data (rates aren't that bad, but you can use eSIM to buy data from some other provide like Airalo, as mentioned above)

not sure how much int'l roaming data gets cut off (like tmobile) though, but it's not unlimited data so...
domestically, unlimited doesnt have hotspot though (+$10 for 20GB hotspot)

https://www.usmobile.com/internation...ng-phone-plans

Ilove2fly

I highly recommend Google Fi. My husband has T-Mobile and I have google fi. The international coverages are similar. Google FI is great for people who use little data.

TGarza

AT&T will send a nasty gram if most of your data data for 3 out of 6 months is used in Canada or Mexico. The plans have language to prevent full time use in either country. I have used a 100 GB in Canada with no warning text. My typical monthly usage is 30 to 35 GB.

For Europe, I have never received any warning texts.

International AT&T technical service is good. After traveling to Germany then back to the US then to Vancouver, our son’s phone could only send/receive calls. Level 2 tech was able to resolve the provisioning with the phone. That’s the only time I can recall being transferred to higher level support.

salut0

Giffgaff have cheap pay as you go SIM cards with fast data in the UK. I’d use that when in the UK and not bother roaming on a US SIM card.

Gaz

Thanks, very useful & helpful reply. It's insane the T-Mobile algos work like that, but it makes sense: in the months proceeding the trip I was mostly in LA, at home, with wifi (I work from home) so my data usage was likely very low. Even when I was in the UK, I did use a UK sim card for a while as T-Mobile wasn't that fast (even with data packs), but I've got various 2FA logins that need a text message so it was a little inconvenient on that front and I ended up just putting my US sim back in.

I'll likely call T-Mobile to get this sorted, then move over to AT&T when I've got the time to schlep down to a shop.

LordHamster

That was my exact situation. When I'm not overseas, I'm working from home... which means I'm on wifi 95% of the time. Keep in mind, I DON'T know how AT&T's roaming policies are since I haven't traveled with them yet.

paperwastage

Google Fi is known to have similar problems with extended int'l roaming
(Seems like 3-6 month continuous)

https://www.google.com/search?q=goog...www.reddit.com

So stick to a proper roaming prepaid data sim for your major intl trips. Two weeks vacation? Should be okay. 1-3 month nomad? Nah

Dubai Stu

Someone pointed to the situation where your TMobile Wifi Calling Mode can loop back through your other SIM. I've occasionally seen my phone saying "TMobile Wi-Fi using Cellular Data," but I don't know how to force that on. Any tips?

Update:

I found this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/com..._data/fph5vpy/

They suggest forcing your SIM to make a network connection it won't roam on. I wonder if you can just shut roaming off on that SIM.

IslesFan

Force your t-mobile sim to use a network it won't register on, i.e. Verizon.

See my comments:
IslesFan comments on Didn’t know dual sim on iPhone could do this. Pretty cool. (reddit.com)
IslesFan comments on Didn’t know dual sim on iPhone could do this. Pretty cool. (reddit.com)

Can't turn off roaming, since you cannot disable voice roaming.

EDIT: On my iPhone 13 I have my main line as an eSim, with a Visible physical sim and a second t-mobile line as eSim. This way I can use kickback if needed.

izzik

Google Fi