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iPhone prepaid sim card with data in the USA?

M

mortsamis

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 24, 2009
1
0
Hi all,

I am an Australian going on a 1 month holiday to the US next in June/July. I have an iPhone 3G and can arrange to get it unlocked by my provider in Australia for $80.

As my provider's roaming rates border on insanity, I am looking to get a sim card that is capable of doing a months worth of calls/SMS + data on a prepaid or pay as you go basis and no contract (obviously). Can someone suggest my best option for doing this? is it even possible?

I know the providers and options here well, but the USA is a mystery to me. It seems that some have had luck with AT&T Go Phone, but the articles ive read appear a bit old. They all talk of unlimited data and I can't see any reference to that on the Go Phone site.

I could live with 100/200MB of data and I wont make too many calls. If I do they will be national. I mainly want it for google maps + GPS and browsing where required. Any suggestions are more than welcome!

Thanks,
Morts
 
Wirelessly posted (BB 8900: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

There is no prepaid iPhone plan, or prepaid compatible plan.

You could also just get a prepaid minute plan with no data, and rely on wifi.



This might sound silly, but since you already have the phone, why not just get a normal plan for a month? There's no contract if you don't purhase a subsidized phone from AT&T. It'll cost you $30 for activation, but there will be no termination fee if you jus end it after 1month.
 
Hey. I too am traveling to the states for about a month, and was hoping to buy a prepaid with data etc. The bad news is I haven't found one bit of info that indicates this is possible...

I've seen a few sites that sell prepaid cards with no data, but obviously this isn't ideal. You'd think that being built for the American market originally, this would be easy to sort out???

Let me know if you find a solution and good luck.
 
Which option did you end up choosing?


mortsamis said:
Hi all,

I am an Australian going on a 1 month holiday to the US next in June/July. I have an iPhone 3G and can arrange to get it unlocked by my provider in Australia for $80.

As my provider's roaming rates border on insanity, I am looking to get a sim card that is capable of doing a months worth of calls/SMS + data on a prepaid or pay as you go basis and no contract (obviously). Can someone suggest my best option for doing this? is it even possible?

I know the providers and options here well, but the USA is a mystery to me. It seems that some have had luck with AT&T Go Phone, but the articles ive read appear a bit old. They all talk of unlimited data and I can't see any reference to that on the Go Phone site.

I could live with 100/200MB of data and I wont make too many calls. If I do they will be national. I mainly want it for google maps + GPS and browsing where required. Any suggestions are more than welcome!

Thanks,
Morts
Click to expand...
 
+1 Bump

yeah any word on the solution to this?

I'm in exactly the same boat. I have an unlocked iPhone 3G. I successfully used it in Italy with a prepaid Vodafone sim, and now I'm heading to San Francisco and need calls and data.

Will I be able to buy a prepaid AT&T sim card with data and calls, and use it in my unlocked iPhone 3G?
 
Prepaid sim data USA

Hi all,

I know this is an old thread but it popped up when I did a search for the same information as the original poster.
Here's a hot tip. AT&T are not helpful and we were told by two different customer service representatives today that they do NOT do prepaid data. We were looking at a GoPhone plan. This may be because they didn't understand how an unlocked phone from overseas differs from a phone purchased in the USA but either way they were not helpful so we gave up on AT&T.
I can confirm that if you go to T-Mobile with an unlocked Australian iPhone 3GS or 4 and get a $70 prepaid plan you will get a very generous 2 gigs of data. There are a couple of lower priced plans too.

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/prepaid-plans.aspx

The only trick for iPhone 4 users is that you need to use a sharp blade to cut the sim card down to mini-sim size. The guy in the store we visited was nice enough to do this for me and everything works just fine.
 
Rifty said:
Hi all,

I know this is an old thread but it popped up when I did a search for the same information as the original poster.
Here's a hot tip. AT&T are not helpful and we were told by two different customer service representatives today that they do NOT do prepaid data. We were looking at a GoPhone plan. This may be because they didn't understand how an unlocked phone from overseas differs from a phone purchased in the USA but either way they were not helpful so we gave up on AT&T.
I can confirm that if you go to T-Mobile with an unlocked Australian iPhone 3GS or 4 and get a $70 prepaid plan you will get a very generous 2 gigs of data. There are a couple of lower priced plans too.

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/prepaid-plans.aspx

The only trick for iPhone 4 users is that you need to use a sharp blade to cut the sim card down to mini-sim size. The guy in the store we visited was nice enough to do this for me and everything works just fine.
Click to expand...

Hi I was in the same situation and a search found this thread.
How do you get the $70 prepaid plan? Do you go to a store to get a T-mobile SIm and then choose the plan when you activate your sim? I am not sure how it works. It doesn't look like I can buy the sim from here.
Thanks.
 
t-mobile prepaid

I came to the US 4 months ago with my UNLOCKED iPhone 4 which is still under contract with Vodafone Australia.

I went to a t-mobile store, and bought a prepaid sim for $30 a month with 30mb of data and 1500 minutes.

The guy in the store had to cut the sim so it would fit the mini simcard slot in the iphone, and it works fine. The 30mb of data is nothing, so I usually run out after a few days. I use wireless internet at home and at work, and there's also plenty of places in Manhattan that offer free wifi.
 
T-Mobile is not 3G, Is very slow (EGDE)

Be warned, you can get a SIM from T Mobile, but it will use EDGE, not 3G and it will be s l o w a s s h i z n i t. Trust me I am using it now. S L O W.

Am looking for a better option.
 
iphone prepaid with data in the USA

I'm an american from Dallas that lives in the UK.

I was just surfing for how to be able to use my iphone4 when i'm home for thanksgiving and this is what i'm going to be using.

firstly i went on ebay and found a prepaid iphone4 sim for 99 cents for Simple Mobile ( www.mysimplemobile.com ) the sim is $12 if you buy it from their website.

under support on the website it gives info how to setup the iphone4 to work with their service.

$60 for 30 days unlimited calls texts and 4G data, or for $40 you can get the same but 3G data instead.

I have only ordered the sim to be delivered to my home in Dallas thus far but will post again by the 18th of November whether it actually worked out for me or not, sure looks promising though.
 
us data flat sim of prepaid-global tested

internet sim worked very good – flatrates convinced – sim already activated – just insert and surf:

http://www.prepaid-global.de/usa-amerika.html

an micro sim for ipad and iphone 4 and iphone4s also available.

unfortunately my german hardware just allows 2 g speed edge, not the possible 3g.
But it is suitable foe emails, skype voip talking, facebook, surfing the web and navigation by ipad or smartphone
 
UKDallasGuy, how is Simple working for you?

Incidentally, I am also from Dallas, heading home in December for a month and looking at plans for my unlocked iPhone 4. I saw your post and looked at the website. Seems like a decent plan. I'm curious to hear how it went. Thanks in advance.
 
T-Mobile prepaid for iPhone 4

I successfully bought a prepaid T-Mobile SIM for my iPhone 4 today. Went for the $2/day plan, which gives unlimited voice, txt and 2g/EDGE data. The SIM pack costs $20, and I bought $30 of credit, for a total of $50 upfront cost. The T-Mobile store had a microSIM cutter to cut the SIM.
 
azoama said:
I successfully bought a prepaid T-Mobile SIM for my iPhone 4 today. Went for the $2/day plan, which gives unlimited voice, txt and 2g/EDGE data. The SIM pack costs $20, and I bought $30 of credit, for a total of $50 upfront cost. The T-Mobile store had a microSIM cutter to cut the SIM.
Click to expand...

Did this work for you? Are you on iOS 5.0.1? Which baseband? And do you have any issues? MMS? Etc..
 
Best Prepaid SIM card in US

I have posted this answer on a few sites asking for the best prepaid sim cards to purchase when in the US, so some of you may have read this already>>> I work for T-mobile USA and we do hundreds of prepaid activations at my location. If you are looking for a prepaid sim card that includes local and international calling and texting as well as data for your smartphone whether it be for an iPhone or blackberry or htc etc.,we have it. We have Prepaid sims that are good for 30 days or more , as well as daily plans if you are only staying in the states for a short while. All of our plans are affordable from $10 and up depending on your needs. Here is a link to our prepaid plans http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/prepaid-plans.aspxWT.mc_n=PrePdPlnsOvrMain&WT.mc_t=OnsiteAd
Make sure you unlock your phones before your trip!!I Also the best place to purchase your sim card and guarantee you the BEST and CORRECT price is at a T-Mobile corporate retail store, we set it up, and activate for you before you leave the store. I hope this helps!!
And if any of you will be in the San Francisco downtown area my store is located on
50 Powell St. (right at the Cable Car turnaround) Please Ask for me my name is SAMANTHA B:) and I would be glad to help you!!
 
True, but...

I use a T Mobile SIM when in the USA and it works, but I can tell you that their network is the slowest and there is no "fast" plan option (data) available if you're on an iPhone. It's so slow it makes using data on your phone there almost not worthwhile. The plans are sold to you as 3G or 4G, but they run on the old technology, not the current standard/speeds. Anyone at a T Mobile shop will confirm this, just be aware that if you use/need/rely on data, finding free wi-fi will likely serve you better.
 
There are onnly two prepaid MVNO H2O and Redpocket that will allow you to use the iphone with 3g data speed. I would recomend Redpocket ccause they give you two 2gigs of data
 
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