Are you talking about VoIP service, or internet (email, surfing) access via free HotSpots in Europe? Or both? Or what?

I now have WiFi on my t-mobile Blackberry Curve. works at home. Will also try it at Starbucks to see if it works well.

They both have spell check.

If you are planning on buying prepaid service, T-Mobile wins, hands down. I have had my prepaid account by them since 2001 and have long since been put into their bonus rewards program. Their range of voice call costs anywhere between $0.32/min for $10 refills to about $0.06/min per $100 refill (in/outbound domestic U.S. text messages are a flat $0.10/msg).

Plus the best thing about T-Mobile ToGo is that this is the only U.S.-based cell carrier that allows it's roaming customers to roam internationally upon activation of account ... with no credit or background check of any kind.

I also have AT&T GoPhone prepaid. Unlike T-Mobile ToGo, GoPhone accounts can't roam internationally.

In terms of coverage, GoPhones can only access certain cell sites owned by AT&T that are site designated as a GoPhone accesible site, which means that your prepaid coverage is much more limited than regular AT&T post-paid. T-Mobile ToGo, however, can pretty much access any GSM cell site with no problems so their coverage is vastly superior.

Lastly, T-Mobile ToGo has a program called Gold Rewards that gives more minutes per refill once you're reach $100 worth of refills. Plus with that rewards program, once achieved, *all* refills have expiration dates of exactly one year since last refill. GoPhones also have a similar program, but the best term of retention period to keep the phone active is 90 days with a $100 card.

Would you mind posting a link to this? All I can find is about Canada and Mexico here.

It's not online. You would need to go to any T-Mobile corporate owned store or at certain retailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA to pick up and read their full brochure on their ToGo products as it explains this feature.

I just happen to know this anyways because this past May, I got a free text message on my ToGo phone stating that they now offer international roaming to over 290 countries. Canada and Mexico roaming has been available since summer 2006.

I have one as well, works at Starbucks, and worked great using the Hotel's wi-fi when I was in the UK... saved a fortune in roaming.

We're talking about this on prepaidgsm.net. Tmobile2go doesn't work in Germany which should be TMobile Central. Clearly, however, they are planning more roaming. TMobile UK prepaid SIMs work worldwide. Clearly the company has the expertise to pull this off.

I have ATT - bills when I am overseas, even with the extra data plan, are crazy. Go Tmobile if you get service by you.

I am thinking of dumping sprint after 8 years and switching to T-Mo, mainly to get the discounted wi-fi. Questions:

(1) If you get the $20/mo wi-fi addon, does that cover all devices, i.e. I have a cell, an iTouch and a laptop? Does wifi fee cover TMo hotspots outside USA?

(2) Does the wi-fi fee cover internet surfing from your cell, or is that another $5.99?

(3) What about blackberry (push email) service? Is that another add-on? (at sprint it is $40/mo!)

(4) What happens when you are roaming overseas? Is it 99cents/min for (a) incoming calls from USA (b) Outgoing to USA from Europe? (c) cellphone to cellphone within Europe?

(5) Any good promos we should watch for (e.g. $10/mo wifi, 1000minute deals, etc.)

Would also appreciate any thoughts on coverage within California.

I think T-Mobile wins hands down
 

I travel very extensively and T-Mobile really works for me. I have used both AT&T and T-Mobile very heavily over the last 6 years. I find AT&T and T-Mobile coverage about the same in most areas. If you stay in cities, metro areas, interstates, major highways you really won't have any issues.

T-Mobile has way superior customer service. AT&T is ok until you have to call customer service. T-Mobile customer service is awesome


T-Mobile voice international roaming is much cheaper then AT&T in most places.

T-Mobile data roaming is cheaper (I think as well). With Blackberry you can pay an additional $20 flat fee and get unlimited international data roaming. I add this option before I go International and discontinue it when I come back stateside.

T-Mobile has given me unlocked codes any phone I have ever owned with them. AT&T is a real pain about this so it's hard to use other SIMs when you travel.

No Blackberries have 3G so the AT&T and T-Mobile both only do EDGE. More then sufficient for email and the occasional web browsing on the phone itself.

The Blackberry Cruve on T-Mobile has Hotspot@Home which means you can pay $20 (or $10 if your lucky) and get unlimited calls whenever you have a wifi connection on the phone over the Internet. T-Mobile has profiles which basically let you get free calls on the phone whenever you are in a T-Mobile hotspot. So when I am at home, Starbucks, airport, or wherever I have a wifi Internet connection or in a T-Mobile hotspot I get unlimited calls for free. You don't have to have an additional T-Mobile Hotspot service; the phone recognizes automatically it is on a T-Mobile hotspot (or any wireless network you setup) and starts making calls over wifi for free (when you pay the extra $10 - $20 for the Hotspot@Home service).

The T-Mobile $20 hotspot add on covers all devices but you can only log on one at a time at a T-Mobile hotspot. It's usually $20 for the hotspot service and $20 for EDGE (Internet over the phone network)

If your cell phone has wifi you can connect to any wifi network you want. You only have to pay for it if the wifi network charges you. Like I said above T-Mobile will let you access their airport/starbucks hotspot service for about $20.00 a month. The $5.99 is T-Mobile web which lets you browse limited websites on your phone itself. That has nothing to do with wifi.

Yes - it's $20 a month for a personal (unless you get the corporate version)

so your basic data choices on T-Mobile are:

$20 - phone Internet (Blackberry Internet push, Windows mobile data, etc any smartphone with Internet/email)

$5.99 - Phone Internet for any non-smart phone. For any smartphone you get the $20 phone Internet plan instead.

$20.00 - add on to get T-Mobile hotspot service so you can use a laptop or any wifi device to jump on a T-Mobile hotpsot.

$20.00 - add on to get Hotspot@Home service. This gives you unlimited calls over the Internet for free if your phone supports it. Only a few phones support it. The only decent phone is the Blackberry Curve.

$0.99 to and from the US when roaming in Europe. Other countries have different rates. T-mobile will unlock your phone so you can buy a prepaid SIM.

I don't know...maybe check out wirefly.com or Howardfourms.com



I have had no issues with T-Mobile around San Jose (mostly hang around Great American Parkway), all over San Fransisco, and Orange County / Anaheim area. No issues I can remember when I was in San Jose either. I go to those area quite frequently and no issues with AT&T or T-Mobile.

Very basic International data cost question...
 

I will be in Mexico tomorrow (Monday) through the following Monday... using AT&T service. And here's my "very basic" and perhaps silly question... AT&T is quoting a $24.99 charge for 20MB of data use... and I've no idea how to estimate what I'll get in terms of email reading (text, no attachments) for that amount of data. Is it as simple as looking at the average size of my email and estimating from that?

The "overage reate" is $.005/KB and I for sure don't know how to interpret that.

Any help based on your experience is much appreciated.

I think you must mean 190 countries. I have an 02 UK SIM which is supposed to be the gold standard in international roaming, and I'm just barely over 200 countries. My list includes Iran, Cuba, and some other places that US sims cannot go. ATT contract roamers have 195 countries that they can roam in.

Now admittedly, sometimes there is a dispute about what is a country (Palestine, the Holy Sea, Kosovo, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc), but the number sounds a tad high for prepaid.

If after all the previous replies and you still can't make up your mind. My advice is to stick with the American company (ATT) and support American jobs. T-Mobile is a European company.



Out of a Job Yet? Keep buying Foreign.