It used to not be the case with T-mobile. We had T-Mobile to use it in Europe as freely. Not so. When my D went to Italy in 2010, she had a T-mobile and I called them to make sure she is set. They confirmed and everything except it didn’t work when she got there. She had to borrow a friend’s phone to let me know. I called T-mobile asking for an immediate attention. They couldn’t do much before she came home a week later. Although T-mobile is owned ny Deutch telkom, T-mobile US is a separate entity and would have taken them more than a week to get my D’s phone working in Italy.
My phone is extremely important to me (i.e. I’m addicted). I’m very dependent on it both for business and personal use. I have to have a top end phone with all the whistles and bells (to me, that’s iphone) and have to have the best coverage.
@Iglooo, T-Mobile instituted the access to foreign networks last year. Not all phones work well on foreign networks. Some are known to have issues like the 2nd Gen Motorola Moto-X. My son had that, and the tech support worked to make it compatible with the German network in just a few minutes while he was there.
^Glad they got their bugs worked out. I was furious in 2010. It failed when I needed it most. We switched to att soon after that.
@notrichenough… Just did it last week … Here is email confirmation
New monthly bill (07/23): $178.27
This is an estimate of your typical monthly charges.
Details as of 06/24 05:11 PM EDT.
I guess I’ll wait and see if they really do it!
Sorry that response was for @Madison85 …
Verizon lowers the per month line charge on the More Everything if the phone became fully paid for on The Edge payment plan, but not if the phone was purchased for a “deal” by virtue of a 2-year contract.
When I looked up, Verizon had plans for people with their own phone $30-40/momth/phone. That looked like a good deal for me since we have only two phones.
Have unlmtd everything on AT&T for 4 phones grandfathered from the iPhone 1 (yep, we had the first ones out and I didn’t know what to do with it for a year or 2 when apps were being written). I don’t like AT&T but I can’t find anything less for what we get, and with 2 20-something high-tech boys and an IT husband, I need all the features.
@threeofthree: AT+T has not notified you of any ‘new’ caps on the term ‘unlimited’? I have seen such fine print in articles related to the increased control the established carriers slowly phase in even for their long-term, grandfathered customers. No warnings on invalidating your terms if they determine you are using their service to provide Hotspot use to others?
@Waiting2exhale I haven’t seen anything from Verizon about phasing out of our unlimited data or invalidating terms if I use my hotspot app…
BTW if anyone switches their TV/Internet/etc service to DirecTV, I think the rep said you can also sign up for AT&T unlimited data on your cell with some restrictions after a certain amount of GB.
I just saw a Verizon commercial and wanted to comment about it on here-it’s set to the song “Milkshake” by Kelis, and the lyrics are “my dataplan is better than yours”, etc. It was pretty darn funny :).
We have TMobile. Probably pay too much ($100 for 2 lines), but everything is unlimited (phone, text, data), so I never need to worry about overages. Plus it worked like a charm on a recent 4 country EU trip. 95% of our calling area is in urban areas. There have been a few rural spots with no coverage. All the sales agents in their brick and mortar stores have bent over backwards whenever we needed assistance with a phone or service issue (usually it is a phone issue). We joined when there were no contracts, and most of the other major carriers still had them. Brought in a very old phone and former numbers. So far, I’ve been happy, but may need to monitor competition and specials.
Long time Verizon customers. H and I have started doing some extended travel. Verizon is useless for international use - unless you don’t mind paying what amounts to a couple of business class airfares to Europe for the privilege of using Verizon abroad.
We have unlocked iPhones. They are dual GSM/CDMA capable. Several years ago I bought a burner phone in Warsaw - it was CDMA…however, it was not the right band for communications with the US.
We just spent 4 weeks in various European countries. I got us two T-Mobile numbers. Ordered the SIM card via phone call to T-Mobile. They have a program which includes unlimited text and data in 140 countries. The data is limited to 2G at LTE speeds and then you get throttled down. We chose to purchase a 6G/per line high speed data package. Unused data rolls over for 12 months. All calls are .20/minute…whether out or inbound.
There were some initial problems with getting things to work. You have to set up the new line and send at least one text message to register it on the T-Mobile network. That was easy…the problem was T-Mobile needs to explicitly ‘turn on’ the data option. So while my account showed the data package I discovered it really wasn’t working. The cost for the 6gig version is $80/month for both lines, no contract. There was a bit of a curfunkle with first bill…but that was also straightened out. Also, this package allows for hot-spotting/tethering. However I found out that certain European carries block this capability and so it was rather a useless feature.
The phones worked very very well. Some of the data speeds were slow but we did have access just about everywhere. In addition, we were able to make voice calls with excellent quality using either the Skype or Magic Jack applications. These cost about .02/minute and ran nicely over the data network.
I suspended both lines upon our return, that runs $10/month. T–Mobile will do this for a 3 month period. They will do a second 3 month period upon request.
We plan to use these lines again on our next trips in August and October. Those will take us to the Caribbean and South America. We’ll see if they work as well at these locations.
We have been happy with TMobile, 10GB data each, unlimited text & calling, we have the North American plan, so Canada and Mexico included, plus I can so far text or call European numbers at no extra charge, have not tried the phone in Europe to try that network. About $35/phone
One bad thing, DD would qualify us for an 18% corporate discount, but it does not apply for some reason? We went through the whole procedure & got “nope” you get something else, no bill discount. Whatever the other thing was did not help my bill 
@dietz199 : That is a mouthful of information I will have to digest in parts.
One thing I did want to ask is regarding the ordering of T-Mobile sim cards for your iPhone as you do your traveling and use-as-needed accessing of cellphone services. Keep in mind I do not have a smartphone, and my kids are on phones attached to the provider, so I guess that makes them ‘locked’ to the provider.
With your unlocked iPhone, you just pop sim cards in and out as you need, across provider lines and platforms? With no impact to your relationship with any provider?
If so, that is pretty freakin’ awesome.
My new Project Fi phone (a Nexus 5x which google has a deal on if you get it before July 6th - about 40% off) arrived yesterday, still setting it up and playing around, haven’t traveled anywhere to use it yet. I am loving the phone itself, pure Android, no apps/branding from a carrier or phone manufacturer, and it will get all the Android updates as they come out.
I will report back when I see how the service differs from VM.
@somemom: I take it that the phones were fully paid for and unlocked (see my understanding of this in post above, #135). If that is correct, is this a grandfathered plan, or, one you got within a special offering period with T-Mobile?
No way that rate exists now, I would think.
Just read an inquiry at a T-mobile Support site from a customer who recently switched over from AT+T at the time of the posting (Dec. '14), and they state they had roadside assistance coverage with AT+T.
What?! Who gets roadside assistance with their cellphone service? I am going to have to start some serious digging.
Whether in or out of contract with Verizon I can pop in any SIM card from any provider into my unlocked phone and not change my Verizon relationship. I have to continue paying my Verizon plan while I am also paying my Mobile plan. For us it’s worth the extra cost.
I have in the past simply purchased a T-Mobile SIM/plan when in Germany. However, unless one is under contract the European service providers with whom I am familiar will not see you a package that works across country borders. In other words, if I used my German T-Mobile SIMM and crossed into Poland I would start accruing data, voice and SMS charges. Our son who’s resided in Berlin for the last year turns off is German T-Mobile phone anytime he leaves the country.
The US T-Mobile package is a much much better option for us since it covers 140 countries. Each time we enter a new countries network we get a text that says tells us the terms. Since we stayed within the covered countries we would get texts confirming unlimited data/SMS and .20/minute calling rates. I assume if we were to pass into a country not under those contracted we’d get a message informing us of the rates.
Most providers will unlock a phone if requested to do so…they might even be required to do so at this point. Depending on your provider and your kids’ phones - they may already be unlocked. As long as you continue paying your regular provided I can’t see how they would care if your on someone else network/plan. Your paying them but not using their services.