I've gotta a trip coming up to Europe and another possible trip to S.America. I'm considering getting a world wide SIM card but, not too familiar with them.
Does anyone have any experience with them?
Cost considerations?
Providers that should be considered.

I travel international at least once a year and utilize WhatsApp, Skype for most comms however, work has changed and I'll need to be more in-touch for a couple of days. So, looking to see what the SF members who travel have to say.

Most frequently, I have seen suggestions that you buy a prepaid card upon arrival in your destination.

That said, I used an AT&T card I bought here and it worked fine.

RMD

With our T-Mobile account my wife and I get reduced-rate or free roaming in any country in which we plan to visit. (We've used it in Canada in the past. No problem.)

I used to manage the Verizon wireless plan at work. We had international roaming on all the lines of users that would be travelling. All I did was temporarily add the 100MB for $25 data roaming to a user's line when they travelled, and remove it when they returned.

When a user got a new phone they'd have to contact Verizon, themselves, to set up international roaming the first time.

Worked everywhere they went: Europe, Asia, S. America, Canada, Mexico.

I use Mobal, it's expensive and for emergencies only.

What I like is that, it is pay as you go.
No subscription fees, I've had the phone for 5 years.

They provide a European phone with both European and US phone numbers.

I disable data and utilize WIFI for Internet access.

It has saved my trip on at least one or more occasions.

Worked in the countries I've visited since purchase.

Costa Rica
Belgium
Italy
France
Switz.
Spain

Though, my wife's Sprint carrier Iphone worked perfectly well in Spain this spring.

On a trip to Italy this spring, We enabled international roaming on out AT&T service.

Unlimited talk and text and somewhere around 300mb date. We used WiFi when it was available.

Also we were in large cities, so don't know what the coverage would be in the countryside

Verizon has really dropped the price of international use over the last year, in some countries. China was 10/day for my unlimited calling/text/12GB data plan. Still probably more expensive than using a local SIM, but just cheap enough to avoid the hassle of a 2nd phone number. Japan was still pay-as-you-go.

Wife & #1 son went to Spain in the Spring to see #2 son. They utilized ATT's international, roaming rate plan, one fixed amount and one day rate. It seemed to work out well. Our son in Spain has a local plan and sim card.
Also we all have the Whatsapp messaging app that #2 uses in Spain. It has VOIP capability, which is basically cost free calling when used in conjunction with a WiFI network.

When we went to Europe last (Ireland, England, Belgium, and Italy) we used AT&T's international plan. Activated it over the phone and turned it off when we returned. 2 Samsung phones and a cellular iPad all worked great for talk, text, and data.

I travel internationally several times a year. My wife and I are also notorious optimizers--we refuse to overpay for anything, so paying for a U.S. cell phone's international plan is out.

There's several ways to accomplish what you want, so here's the summary:

1) Use T-Mobile. T-Mobile has "free" international roaming in something like 140+ countries. Text messages coming and going to your phone is free, and you get unlimited data up to 2G speeds. 2G speeds is basically dialup speed, sometimes in the 100-300kbs range, so it's enough to keep Google maps going or keep connectivity to your chat apps like G Chat, WhatsApp, etc. If you are patient, you can load web pages--but Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram is going to be too slow to be useful. Minutes are not free and vary by country, but it's still pretty cheap.

Upon arriving in-country, you might get a text message from T-Mobile's local partner that invites you to upgrade to 4G speeds for an additional cost. Availability and costs vary by country. Some countries, such as Spain, had pretty fast basic internet so I didn't opt for the upgrade.

Despite liking Verizon's network better, I've permanently switched to T-Mobile because of the borderless roaming.

2) Getting a local SIM card. If your phone is capable of communicating on international bands (many, but not all phones are capable of this), AND your phone is "unlocked" by your carrier (carrier has unlocked the phone from its network and will allow the phone to be used on other networks), then you *may* buy a local SIM card upon arrival in country. It usually is the most cost effective method, getting pretty much all the data you can use for $20-30 dollars, to be used within 30 days usually. My gripe about this method is that it is HUGELY inconsistent. For instance, I couldn't find a prepaid sim card in Canada, NOBODY would help me, and as far as I could tell, I had to buy a contract and phone. In London, I bought a SIM card from the first magazine kiosk I found after stepping off the subway.

Using a local pre-paid sim gives you a local number, and usually a very cost effective data package. This makes it easy to send emails and chat using internet based apps like G Chat or WhatsApp, but makes it harder to send texts and phone calls back home (as now you are calling from an international number). International calling rates are usually pretty favorable.

My last gripe with pre-paid sims is that depending on your trip, you may have to buy several. There generally isn't one network for "europe." Each country usually has its own network, or network limitations for use between countries if even on the same network. You can't buy a SIM card in France and then fly over to Italy and keep using the same sim card.

In some instances, you can buy pre-paid SIM cards in advance of your trip and have the shipped to your home before you leave. In some cases, this is the ONLY way to get a pre-paid sim card, such as in Japan--where they require a residence address in order to buy a SIM card locally.

There usually is some amount of futzing around with the SIM card and phone settings once you get in country. I recommend getting familiar with some troubleshooting techniques such as turning your phone on and off, and how to force your phone to search and display all available networks, etc.

3) Renting or purchasing mobile hot spots. This is easy, but usually the least cost effective since you are paying for the device rental as well as some bundle of data. Hot spots are data only, so it doesn't solve your phone and text messaging issues, though the speeds are typically fast enough to voice chat with Skype, GChat, Facetime, etc. These mobile hotspots also suffer the same network limitations as buying a pre-paid SIM. They're typically not border and network agnostic, except see below:

If you travel frequently enough, you can buy (or rent) a device called a Sky Roam. It uses a "virtual" SIM and partner networks to give you a border and network agnostic mobile hot-spot at 3G speeds. When you turn on the device, it searches for a partner network, and then downloads the SIM compatible for that network. You pay Sky Roam directly for the service, and it's usually a flat daily rate. I've purchased the device, and I get 24 hours of Wi-Fi service for $8--which, admittedly is not that cheap.

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Generally speaking, if I'm going to spend a few days in each city/country, I rely mostly on the "free" international roaming on my T-Mobile plan. I then try to use free Wi-Fi at restaurants and coffee shops where I can. In the event that free Wi-Fi is too inconsistent, I'll fire up the SkyRoam just for the days that I truly need fast internet. I treat the SkyRoam is like an emergency backup. If I'm going to use the SkyRoam more than once or twice, then I should have just bought a pre-paid SIM.

If I'm around for more than a few days (for instance, 10 days in one country), then I will opt for a pre-paid SIM card.

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Tips and Tricks:

Pay for a VPN service. I use TunnelBear. A VPN encrypts your data traffic from your phone to the service provider. The main reason to do this is you don't want your passwords and data floating around unencrypted while using a cafe's open wi-fi. The second reason is that many countries don't have the privacy protections that we have, and they may be monitoring or censoring your internet traffic--you don't want to accidently commit a crime watching a facebook video someone posts. The third reason is that much of the internet content out there differs from region to region. Using a VPN can fake your location so that when you type something in Google, you don't get your results back in Italian (or, for instance, China bans Google outright, so you need to access Google from outside of the country using a VPN).

Next tip: if you buy a SIM card, buy just the one for your family. In most instances, you can then turn your phone to a hotspot so that the rest of the family members can piggyback off your internet connection. No reason to buy multiples.

Last tip: bring a battery pack if you intend to use your phone as a wi-fi hotspot as above, or if you buy/rent a mobile hotspot or SkyRoam. Activating a mobile hotspot feature really drains the juice on the device.

There's also Project Fi (http://fi.google.com/), but you need a specific set of phones for it to work best (Nexus 6, Nexus 5x, Nexus 6P, Pixel, Pixel XL).

If you don't have one of these phones, then don't bother with this route. When I traveled internationally a few years, ago, I just bought a prepaid SIM wherever I went, was usually not an issue in Europe or places in Africa. You do need to have an unlocked phone, so either have your current carrier unlock it, or buy a cheap "travel phone"; a lot of times, phones in other countries are unlocked by default (At least in Itally). Amazon has a ton of unlocked phones too, some cheap, some not so much: https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref...ords=unlocked+phones

If you do have one of these phones (or want to get one), then I highly recommend the Fi approach. (also if that's the route you choose, PM me, as I have a referral code that gets us both $20 . Won't post it publicly as it would be in bad taste.)

On my last trip, I turned on Verizon international calling and almost never used it.

I used whatapp, facetime over wifi.

I almost never used the cell network.

The $25 was insurance. An additional small cost of the trip.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
1) Use T-Mobile. tly switched to T-Mobile because of the borderless roaming.

Unfortunately I'm a Verizon user. While good for domestic use, CDMA is useless abroad. Another example of how US businesses have screwed the public and made us technologically behind the rest of the world.

quote:

2) Getting a local SIM card.

So, this is route I was thinking. However, it sounds like for each country, you need a different SIM card. Which seems odd in this EU-era of things but, apparently the mobile business hasn't quite caught up with borderless movement.

I was looking at getting one of these SIM cards from Know Roaming. Everything sounds good but, don't know of anyone who's used one.

quote:

3) Renting or purchasing mobile hot spots. Sky Roam.

This is my last choice, while handy, I think the costing makes a SIM option more favorable than getting a SkyRoam device.

If you have a smart phone that is reasonably new, it is more than CDMA and will probably work abroad.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeNH:
If you have a smart phone that is reasonably new, it is more than CDMA and will probably work abroad.

Yup. Many, if not most, of Verizon's newer phones are multi-band capable. Check the individual specs for the phone, and make sure that Verizon has unlocked the phone for third party use, but it'll likely be able to handle a multitude of GSM frequencies as well as CDMA/TDMA.