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AW 8/Ultra - Int Roaming implications

G

Greatdreamer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 8, 2022
6
3
Apple promotes int. roaming for the new watches - but at the same time there remain 3 different product codes with different frequencies covered (but with a huge overlap it seems).
Any idea how this affects buying a US model and operating it mainly in Europe (Germany explicitly)? In the past this wasn't really an option for the LTD/UMTS models. Has this changed now? The price difference is quite extreme and and as I live 70% in Europe, 30% in the USA it is enticing to buy the US version of the ultra instead. Has there been any word how Apple will handle roaming, whether it will be now possible to operate an US Apple Watch with a European contract in Europe and would this even work given the new frequencies covered by US model vs. European model? Any insights are appreciated!
 
You can see the bands each covers here: https://www.apple.com/watch/cellular/

I'd get the US model, it covers more LTE bands. The only ones you lose out on are 8 and 28. In addition the US model is cheaper.

The only restriction I see is that both the iPhone and Watch must use the same carrier. Since people swap in international SIM cards while traveling, I don't see how the Watch would be hardcoded to American carriers.
 
I had a us model and tried to use it on a carrier when I moved outside of the us. The watch app wouldn’t let me purchase a cellular plan in the non U.S. country. I had to get level 2 tech support at the carrier to manually provision it for me. It’s only missing a 3g band used for rural areas on my carrier
 
Manatlt said:
watchOS 9 will introduce international roaming in some older models. Series 7 is definitely one of them.
Click to expand...
I havent really looked into this but presumably you just enable roaming on your phone (that shares the sim) and it will work ?
 
nappes said:
I had a us model and tried to use it on a carrier when I moved outside of the us. The watch app wouldn’t let me purchase a cellular plan in the non U.S. country. I had to get level 2 tech support at the carrier to manually provision it for me. It’s only missing a 3g band used for rural areas on my carrier
Click to expand...
That's not the same as international roaming.
 
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