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U.S. Carrier T-Mobile Offering Unlimited International Texting and 2G Data in 100 Countries

Carlanga said:
This is exciting, even if it's EDGE and if we can start using our phones on airplanes then :eek:

Shame I don't use T-Mobile because signal where I use my phone sucks, hope AT&T follows suit.

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What? is called Facetime Audio, you can make the calls now.
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Sure, but not everyone in my contacts have facetime audio! We live in a world where people do use android, windows phone, and crackberry bro.

Thats where the wifi calling from overseas is needed.
 
barkomatic said:
However, if you have an unlocked iPhone you can potentially get much faster data speeds, a higher data limit, and cheaper texting and calling if you just buy a local sim.
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The problem with this is hunting down the right plans and sometimes getting around local restrictions in each country (e.g. sometimes a credit card with local billing address is required for activation, and usually the SIMs expire after a while). If you travel to several different countries this gets old quickly. These days I often use AT&T's global data add-on, which gives you 120MB for $30 or 300 MB for $60 in many countries. Not much, but enough for emailing, maps, online check-ins etc. And you get the full speed of the roaming partner.
 
i hope canadian carriers follow suite.


also wtf is with shakira? she made 1 good song 10 years ago.
 
What I find even more compelling is the $10 add on plan which allows unlimited calling to foreign landline phones at no additional fee. I know a couple whose family live in Canada and Columbia. This is HUGE news for them.
 
I have good coverage so far. I just switch from AT&T.
 

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As someone who just got back from several weeks abroad in various countries and bit the bullet and paid AT&T $120 for 800mb - I'd have killed for this.

I looked into local sims - but when your visiting multiple countries for only a few days each they quickly become not worth it.
 
I'd preferred tmobile old $20 pro rates monthly blackberry international email only plans. Cause those worked on cruise ships and any other places in the world with any cellular connection.

Plus 2g international roaming data in 100 countries is a nice perk.
 
Diode said:
As someone who just got back from several weeks abroad in various countries and bit the bullet and paid AT&T $120 for 800mb - I'd have killed for this.

I looked into local sims - but when your visiting multiple countries for only a few days each they quickly become not worth it.
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Agreed. Local sim can be a great deal if you're going to be spending all your time in a single country. Not so much if you're traveling around to more than one.
 
2G speeds no EDGE technology

I think what they meant was 2G speeds at 128kbps (good for skype/facetime audio) so you can still set your phone to 3G only mode to get better quality network (in terms of ping times and overall burst of 128kbps)
 
This would be great for FB status updates, Twitter updates, e-mail and text messaging including iMessage. I plan to visit family in Bavaria/Germany next year and always being connected to the T-Mobile/DT network from the moment I step off the plane in Frankfurt will be great. I can rely on hotspots and my hotel's wifi network for streaming and extensive web browsing.

Years from now, some people will look strangely at you when you tell them there was a time when you couldn't just use your phone/plan when you traveled from one country to another without a bunch of complications and excessive charges. The future should be about staying connected almost anywhere in the world without going through hoops/being drained for privilege.
 
I think what they probably mean is that your data speed will be throttled to 2G speeds, unless you buy one of the high speed addon plans, similar to how their domestic data works now (you don't get kicked off of HSPA when your data allotment has been used up - you just get throttled to like 16KB/sec). Many European countries have completely phased out EDGE, so I have serious doubts that this would restrict you to EDGE.
 
I love T-Mobile for doing this. I would totally jump from AT&T to T-Mobile if their coverage gets better. Also, it doesn't financially make sense for me to switch as I don't pay much on AT&T with my discounts applied.

Hopefully AT&T and Verizon shape up and get with the program. Consumers gotta be thankful the merger between T-Mobile and AT&T didn't go through.
 
I think this is a real game changer. I've heard a lot of horror stories of people forgetting to turn their data roaming off and being billed thousands of dollars after just week long trips abroad.

Yes, 2G is slow but it sure as hell beats paying $20/MB. And if you want faster speeds you can buy one of those packages (that are still relatively cheap).

Roaming prices are absolutely ridiculous right now and so this is a great move by T-Mobile. It really shakes up the industry.
Curious to see how the other carriers will respond.
 
sergey19 said:
I think this is a real game changer. I've heard a lot of horror stories of people forgetting to turn their data roaming off and being billed thousands of dollars after just week long trips abroad.

Yes, 2G is slow but it sure as hell beats paying $20/MB. And if you want faster speeds you can buy one of those packages (that are still relatively cheap).

Roaming prices are absolutely ridiculous right now and so this is a great move by T-Mobile. It really shakes up the industry.
Curious to see how the other carriers will respond.
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Hopefully not the same way they responded to T-Mobile Jump.
 
Carlanga said:
What? is called Facetime Audio, you can make the calls now.
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If you want such limited approach skype is much better choice. But proper implementation is Multifon from Megafon in Russia: you are getting VoIP number tied to your mobile (for free), so abroad you could use local sim with any VoIP app on your phone or computer - you receiving all calls to your Megafon number for free and outgoing calls cost close to skype-out rates. US carriers never going to do it.
 
Hope norwegian carries take note. Ill take edge any day when abroad, if I can stop worrying about the bill ill get when I get back.
 
Being in the UK; I would NEVER buy a T-Mobile/ Orange contracted phone again due to the EE veil.

God awful company, coverage & data coverage.
 
Last I checked Svalbard was a Norwegian island and not a country of their own...
 
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