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Prepaid data in the states?

VPrime

VPrime

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 19, 2008
1,724
94
London Ontario
I have decided to take a mini vacation next week to San Fransisco and curious on some data plans for my iPhone.
I have an unlocked 4s, so finding a Carrier shouldn't be a problem.

I'll be there fr 6 days and will need data only, but small amount of voice minutes would be nice too, but not required as I have VOIP app on my iPhone.

what sort of rates am I looking at, and which carrier? I think I would like to have at least 1gb of data.


After some searching it seems tmobile would be the best option even though they only offer edge (for iPhone). How is the signal strength in Sanfransisco, and is edge REALLY slow? ( I have only used 3G). Would edge network be enough to make a VoIP call?
 
Last edited:
You probably wouldn't be able to make a voip call. Go into General, Settings, and Network, and disable the 3G slider. This will turn off 3G and the phone should now use EDGE. You should see an E appear where the 3G usually is. Then see if you can use the phone and do what you'd like to do.

I'd go from there.
 
mgartner0622 said:
You probably wouldn't be able to make a voip call. Go into General, Settings, and Network, and disable the 3G slider. This will turn off 3G and the phone should now use EDGE. You should see an E appear where the 3G usually is. Then see if you can use the phone and do what you'd like to do.

I'd go from there.
Click to expand...

iOS 5 no longer has that option.. It was one of he first things I thought of trying ;).
 
5.01 here as well. Maybe it is a location thing! Carrier settings..
Or even 4s vs older phone?

Oh well, it seems tmobile is the best option for such a short stay.

How common is it for a cellphone carrier shop/cart/stand to have a sim cutter?
 
VPrime said:
5.01 here as well. Maybe it is a location thing! Carrier settings..
Or even 4s vs older phone?

Oh well, it seems tmobile is the best option for such a short stay.

How common is it for a cellphone carrier shop/cart/stand to have a sim cutter?
Click to expand...

Not common at least in my experience. Also, I did a data test on my unlocked iPhone 4 and I get around 128KB/s download here in denver on the EDGE network.
 
mgartner0622 said:
Not common at least in my experience. Also, I did a data test on my unlocked iPhone 4 and I get around 128KB/s download here in denver on the EDGE network.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Good enough for checking email, maps and yelp. VoIP calls are not a huge priority any ways.
 
Just like to update this as I came back from my trip.

2G is wayyyyy too slow to be usable. Most sites took way to long to load so I just gave up. Maps took for ever to load so I gave up and just walked around until I found where I needed to go.
It was fine for emails and checking the weather, but that is about it.

If anyone is in a similar situation (especially since wwdc is coming up) then I would suggest just getting AT&T, they have 500 mb for $30. Add that with a daily unlimited text/talk plan that should be enough for most small trips.
If I had gone that way it would only cost me an extra $15 dollars or so..
 
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