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One of the first things I do when I arrive in a new country is pick up a local SIM card so I can use my phone without roaming charges. Sometimes this is nice a
by JimDabell 9y ago
One of the first things I do when I arrive in a new country is pick up a local SIM card so I can use my phone without roaming charges. Sometimes this is nice and simple where you just walk to a booth in the airport and pick one up, other times it's a real hassle, having to hunt around for a local shop and fill in personal information on sign-up. Have you considered providing local SIM cards as part of your service?
- tintor 9y agoOr just use Google's Project Fi with no roaming charges (if you are from US).
- JimDabell 9y agoFrom what I hear, Fi is by no means perfect, it's only available for a few phone models, and I'm not from the USA anyway.
- sasper 9y agoWhat cell service is perfect? Fi is wonderful for a simple pricing structure and having service in 170+ countries as soon as you land. It allows me to use my phone in the few hours it takes from landing in a new country, to getting to my hotel, to getting to a cell provider to get a local SIM. It is only officially supported on Nexus and Pixel phones, which are great devices. You can get around the limitation by doing some Googling as well if you insist on using a different device.
- cycrutchfield 9y agoMaybe you missed the part where they said they are not from the US?
- JimDabell 9y ago> What cell service is perfect? "By no means perfect" doesn't mean "isn't perfect", it means "it's actually quite a long way away from being perfect". I check in on the state of Fi every so often, and from what a lot of users are saying about it, it seems to be at best beta quality, and that's using the handful of officially supported devices. Perhaps in the countries you've been to with the device you use it's fine, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as reliable as picking up a local SIM. Throw in the fact that it's not officially supported for most devices and that it's only available in the USA makes it a complete non-starter for me. Also: > if you insist on using a different device. Having a device that Fi doesn't support isn't me being unreasonably stubborn like you seem to think. If Fi doesn't support the device that I use, that's Fi's shortcoming, not my own.
- kenbaylor 9y agoOnce Google Fi is activated, it can work on iPhones and other devices. I use it all the time when traveling. Data-only SIM cards are free on Fi, (with no monthly recurring fee) so you can roam on multiple devices and only pay a very low fee ($10/gig) for what you use.
- greggman 9y ago?? I thought Project FI had a min $20 a month basic rate. Looking at the site it certainly looks that way. Is there a way to have a Project FI account and no monthly fee if not used?
- tintor 9y agoYes, you can suspend it for up to 3 months: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6079346?hl=en https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6079346?hl=en
- nathan_f77 9y ago+1, that would be great. Usually it's pretty easy to pick one up in the airport, but I would certainly pay a little extra if I didn't have to think about it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- throwaway123945 9y agoWhat about instead of a local SIM card, you're able to get a smartphone from the hotel you're checking in to and you can use it to hotspot your phone?
- JimDabell 9y agoI don't want to carry around or keep charging an extra device.
- throwaway123945 9y agoWhat if it was free?
- baconomatic 9y agoIt's not that it's free, but having to carry around another device is a hassle.
- throwaway123945 9y agoThanks makes sense.
- deepGem 9y agoThis is a huge pain in many of the airports that I have travelled. In fact, you'll even get ripped off at some. For example Rome. We paid 50 euros for a supposedly Schengen wide 1GB plan but as soon as we left Italy that SIM was useless. So yeah, I'd definitely pay someone if they can just hand me a SIM at a nominal price as soon as I walk out of immigration/baggage claim Singapore has done this in a great way. As soon as you take your bags and go out there are display boards for SIM purchases - quite quick as well. Super friendly staff. EDIT: changed Europe to Schengen.
- ransom1538 9y agoIn Rome buying a sim is a total gamble -- many times they don't even work. I learned to buy the sim, then literally STAND in the same line and install it into my phone. (When I do this the staff at these stores start to get nervous.) If it doesn't work - I hand them back the sim and explain it doesn't work on my phone. They then take my receipt, type something into their computer, restart the phone and explain how it should work now. THEY NEVER check the phone to see if it works they know -- its related to something they are typing on their computer. ALSO, another trick they try is to explain it takes 24 hours. This is a total lie, it wont work after the 24 hours -- i usually just argue until they fix.
- StavrosK 9y agoAre there people who take the SIM and leave? I always assume everyone stuck around until data was okay on the phone, since sometimes it needs activation, sometimes it needs settings, etc.
- wapz 9y agoIn Japan you can buy it at the convenient stores and the "mini" electronic store (haneda) at the airports. Switching sims, setting up the APNs, and the NO REFUND AFTER OPENED on the sticker make people buy it and jump on the bus or train to downtown tokyo (where you have 45mins ~ 1.5 hours to burn anyways).
- cushychicken 9y agoGreat idea. I still haven't figured out a surefire way to do this for China travel.
- shawnsheikh 9y agoWe have an awesome offering at a good amount of China airports, we'd love to help! We're are also actively decreasing prices in China this month, so be on the look out :)
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoHuh? They have a booth selling China mobile SIMs, but they might offer Unicom also (important if you have a GSM phone) inside customs, I believe it is 24 hours, for most international airports. The SIM is pay as you go, you can refill it at most newspaper stands.
- cushychicken 9y agoThe problem generally isn't the SIM itself - it's the form factor. Granted I haven't traveled to China in two years now, but MicroSIM form factor was nonexistent there on my last trip. Many vendors used cheap, shitty handheld punches to get the excess plastic off of normal SIM cards to get them into SIM form factor. This worked about one time out of five - most of the time it just destroyed the SIM card.
- mwest 9y agoThis is much less of a pain since EU roaming charges ended on 15 June 2017. "Roaming charges end on 15 June 2017. Europeans travelling within the EU countries will Roam Like at Home and pay domestic prices for roaming calls, SMS and data." https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/policies/roaming https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/policies/roami... Happily using my UK SIM and data plan while traveling through several EU countries.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago> This is much less of a pain since EU roaming charges ended on 15 June 2017. > Happily using my UK SIM and data plan while traveling through several EU countries. The Brexit should fix that for you.
- shimon_e 9y agoIsraeli sims have free roaming in EU. No reason why the UK can't keep that.
- CaptainZapp 9y agoBecause, when British carriers get a chance to fleece their customers without pesky European regulators spoiling the party you can be damn sure that they'll jump on that opportunity in a heartbeat.
- mrtimo 9y agoT-mobile (Post-paid) has free international data and SMS... works in 100s of countries. No extra cost. This is the sole reason I am a customer. The data is slow, but definitely good enough. It is good enough to use google hangouts to call phones back in the states.
- kobeya 9y agoT-mobile also routes though a Texas VPN when you're out of the country, which has its tradeoffs (super annoying latency, but no censorship in places like China).
- ctphipps 9y agoThis is the way that mobile data roaming works - the Internet egress point is your home carrier's, not the carrier on which you are roaming. Nothing special about T-Mobile here.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- blainevess 9y agoWe definitely see the pain point here. It'd be great to be met by our agent and handed a SIM card or hotspot. Thanks for your feedback!
- Pamar 9y agoIf you (or anyone else) has to travel to Japan I endorse https://www.rentafonejapan.com/ https://www.rentafonejapan.com/ - they will have the phone or cell modem delivered to your hotel and you can drop it to the reception or in a mail delivery box on your way to the airport.
- deepGem 9y agoMan, Japan is way ahead of the rest of the world, when it comes to certain aspects of convenience.
- ctphipps 9y ago...and way behind in others. Try finding a pre-paid voice & data SIM in Japan (hint: it doesn't exist due to arcane regulations - non-residents can only get data-only SIMs). Most WiFi spots require registration that require you to confirm identity via a verification email (think chicken and egg).
- CaptainZapp 9y agoI hope not to drag this conversation too much down the rabbit hole, but do you have any advise about what and where to get when it comes to a data SIM, which works on a GSM phone in Japan? Validity: ca. 1 month.
- 9y ago
- gordon_freeman 9y agoWhy don't you switch to Project Fi? It's a network service from Google in USA which has coverage in lot of other countries internationally. Disclaimer: I am just a happy Fi customer
- realdlee 9y ago+1 for Project Fi for international travel. Terrible for calls in the US, but great for international travel.