International Advice

it is better to have a local sim. you can unlock your phone and keep the two services, american phone in case of need and foreign for communication in that country

There are too many variables to give advice.

For instance, you say a family plan, are you the primary account holder, are you just one of the phone lines, are you grandfathered in any of the plan that you couldn't live without upon your return, is everybody on the plan going?

For me, I have had my number for years and would want to keep it and have a local number to use on trips home so, I would put my number on a dumb phone and keep that to retain the account. I would then pick up a local phone in Guatemala.

BEL86 said:

I've had a family plan with AT&T for about 15 years. I am getting ready to move to Guatemala to teach for about 9-14 months (possibly longer if I love it )

My question is, do you recommend that I keep my current AT&T service and strictly use FaceTime/Viber/WhatsApp/Facebook and other Wifi apps to keep in touch? OR should I cancel my AT&T contract, unlock my iPhone5, and get a local service provider over there?

I will be in an area that there are many wifi hotspots, but clearly not if I go hiking, to the beach etc.

Does anyone have personal experience with anything similar? All opinions and suggestions are welcome!!

Thanks!

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You can unlock your iphone without canceling your contract, you can simply ask them for you. I'm currently in china for 2 months and I didn't want to get an international plan but I wanted to use a local sim with a lot cheaper rates. Unlocking your iphone with AT&T is very simple, you can google it and there will be a form to fill out on the AT&T site, or you can call customer service and they will help you. They unlocked mine with no hassle, they asked me why I was unlocking and I told them and they understood. There are some prerequisite such as having been a customer for x amount of time and only being able to unlock 5 phones in a year or something, but that shouldn't be a problem for you. So I suggest just google it or look around on AT&T's website, they have a page dedicated to this.

I suggest you use a local sim because it'll probably be a lot cheaper and you might even get data with it, like I did. Relying on wifi is just not too reliable, and it could Be spotty. There's nothing more frustrating than an iphone that doesn't function fully anyways I hope I helped, dig around and I'm sure you'll find it. If you have more questions, let me know.

BEL86 said:

Thank you all! Especially @Aimee.Elizabeth! I will be calling AT&T ASAP and hoping they give me the same help you received!!

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If the CS on the phone is no help go to the form online. I heard the CS over the phone can be hit or miss. I filled out the form online with no question asked. Much easier just may not be as fast.

BEL86 said:

Good to know!!! Thank you!!

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Sure thing. You should have no issues. If you do just ask to speak to a manager there is no reason they should not do this for you.

i think you can also suspend your service on a temporary basis. i think its usually used for service members going overseas. may want to consider that if you want to maybe come back. this will avoid needing to cancel the plan altogether, and allow you to reactivate it once you come back.

however, after reviewing the suspension details, it says plan charges still occur. wtf is the point of that???

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB102788&cv=820#fbid=Iy13I91UOCd

srsub3 said:

it is better to have a local sim. you can unlock your phone and keep the two services, american phone in case of need and foreign for communication in that country

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This
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