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>"Unlimited data, free international roaming (with data!), and you can bring your own phone to any plan." A couple of years ago an American company I worked fo

>"Unlimited data, free international roaming (with data!), and you can bring your own phone to any plan." A couple of years ago an American company I worked for had T-mobile phones with a plan that included the free international roaming. This international roaming was 2G data by default. In many countries we had to visit these data plans for internet access were simply unusable because they were so slow. Opening pages a browser would simply time out. This would happen in large countries China, Australia and many European countries as well. The company ended up ditching T-Mobile as a result. While it was free in the sense that it allowed them to advertise it as such it was not functional.

forrestthewoods 7y ago
I’ve travelled extensively T-Mobile free international data and it’s AMAZING. Europe, South America, and Africa. Yes it’s slow. No I wouldn’t do business with it. But holy shit the difference in “slow data” and “no data” is approximately infinite.
- bogomipz 7y ago
  Yes and in China, most of South East Asia, all of Australia, all of India and nearly all the Middle East its NOT AMAZING as its completely unusable. It's also NOT AMAZING in many counties in Europe, such as Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic from personal experience. Ditto for Urugay, Brazil and Bolivia in South America. So no you can't really just call out all of Europe and Africa and South America and say it's amazing. When the alternative is to simply pop a local SIM into your phone and get working internet for the same $15 dollars it costs for the T-Mobile One World Plan what's the point exactly?
  - walterbell 7y ago
    Pop local SIM: - without data, find open store - wait in line for counter service - choose prepaid package/carrier - passport copy/screen: gov + random store - store "forgets" to return passport - run out of data due to opaque billing - repeat
    - bogomipz 7y ago
      "waiting in line", "Choose a carrier" and "store forgets to return passport"? You might as well add "having to breathe" and "tapping your debit card" to this list of hardhsips. This list is really quite laughable. In many parts of the world you can get a SIM at a 24 hour convenience store and without a passport. And once you have the SIM you can almost always top them up on line. I think most people would consider the 5 minute time investment to be a fair tradeoff for working internet on their phone.
      - walterbell 7y ago
        Countries vary. Travelers buy SIMs when it's easy (e.g. EU). Some countries have more regulation, surveillance, billing or account provisioning glitches.
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      IME they sell SIMs from a kiosk in the lobby of the airport. The guy can't go anywhere with your passport because there's nowhere to go. If he screws around just complain loudly; one of the military dudes with big guns will probably respond. b^)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- oefrha 7y ago
  Having had the “pleasure” to use T-mobile’s 2G international roaming once, and on a separate occasion be effectively capped to 2G on T-mobile’s domestic network through Google Fi for a while, I’d say the line between 2G and disconnected is getting blurrier by the day. Launching Uber and getting anything to load took like ten minutes, I was almost stranded for that.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
myrandomcomment 7y ago
So I use this everywhere in the world pretty much for years. It is very slow for web, but for just getting email and directions it worked great. If I needed faster I would just get a local SIM and stick it into an WifiAP that I have. You could also upgrade to LTE for your trip for a set fee by pressing on a link in the text msg they (t-mobile) sent you when you turned on the phone in the other country. For me not having to worry about my phone just working (even if it was slow) when I landed is a plus.
bogomipz 7y ago
And and just be clear on what 2G speeds are on the T-Mobile plan with included "international data" its 128 Kbps! [1][2]. Try to open an email attachment or render a tile in mapping app with that. It's a non-starter. It's quite amusing to me that sharing my experience with a specific carrier's international roaming plan would upset someone. Are people actually T-Mobile fan boys? I mean it's a telecom company for heaven's sake. Telecom is one of the sleaziest industries there is. Who cares?! They're all different degrees of shit. For a little context during a 3 years period I was spending a little over 200 days a year on the road internationally with a work issued T-Mobile phone during that time. My experience is not unique either. You can check https://community.t-mobile.com/ https://community.t-mobile.com/ [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreymorrison/2018/02/07/how-fast-are-t-mobiles-international-data-speeds/#cc93216bdca3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreymorrison/2018/02/07/how... [2] https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/roaming https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/roaming

forrestthewoods 7y ago

I’ve travelled extensively T-Mobile free international data and it’s AMAZING. Europe, South America, and Africa. Yes it’s slow. No I wouldn’t do business with it. But holy shit the difference in “slow data” and “no data” is approximately infinite.

bogomipz 7y ago
Yes and in China, most of South East Asia, all of Australia, all of India and nearly all the Middle East its NOT AMAZING as its completely unusable. It's also NOT AMAZING in many counties in Europe, such as Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic from personal experience. Ditto for Urugay, Brazil and Bolivia in South America. So no you can't really just call out all of Europe and Africa and South America and say it's amazing. When the alternative is to simply pop a local SIM into your phone and get working internet for the same $15 dollars it costs for the T-Mobile One World Plan what's the point exactly?
- walterbell 7y ago
  Pop local SIM: - without data, find open store - wait in line for counter service - choose prepaid package/carrier - passport copy/screen: gov + random store - store "forgets" to return passport - run out of data due to opaque billing - repeat
  - bogomipz 7y ago
    "waiting in line", "Choose a carrier" and "store forgets to return passport"? You might as well add "having to breathe" and "tapping your debit card" to this list of hardhsips. This list is really quite laughable. In many parts of the world you can get a SIM at a 24 hour convenience store and without a passport. And once you have the SIM you can almost always top them up on line. I think most people would consider the 5 minute time investment to be a fair tradeoff for working internet on their phone.
    - walterbell 7y ago
      Countries vary. Travelers buy SIMs when it's easy (e.g. EU). Some countries have more regulation, surveillance, billing or account provisioning glitches.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    IME they sell SIMs from a kiosk in the lobby of the airport. The guy can't go anywhere with your passport because there's nowhere to go. If he screws around just complain loudly; one of the military dudes with big guns will probably respond. b^)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
oefrha 7y ago
Having had the “pleasure” to use T-mobile’s 2G international roaming once, and on a separate occasion be effectively capped to 2G on T-mobile’s domestic network through Google Fi for a while, I’d say the line between 2G and disconnected is getting blurrier by the day. Launching Uber and getting anything to load took like ten minutes, I was almost stranded for that.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

myrandomcomment 7y ago

So I use this everywhere in the world pretty much for years. It is very slow for web, but for just getting email and directions it worked great. If I needed faster I would just get a local SIM and stick it into an WifiAP that I have. You could also upgrade to LTE for your trip for a set fee by pressing on a link in the text msg they (t-mobile) sent you when you turned on the phone in the other country. For me not having to worry about my phone just working (even if it was slow) when I landed is a plus.

bogomipz 7y ago

And and just be clear on what 2G speeds are on the T-Mobile plan with included "international data" its 128 Kbps! [1][2]. Try to open an email attachment or render a tile in mapping app with that. It's a non-starter. It's quite amusing to me that sharing my experience with a specific carrier's international roaming plan would upset someone. Are people actually T-Mobile fan boys? I mean it's a telecom company for heaven's sake. Telecom is one of the sleaziest industries there is. Who cares?! They're all different degrees of shit. For a little context during a 3 years period I was spending a little over 200 days a year on the road internationally with a work issued T-Mobile phone during that time. My experience is not unique either. You can check https://community.t-mobile.com/ https://community.t-mobile.com/ [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreymorrison/2018/02/07/how-fast-are-t-mobiles-international-data-speeds/#cc93216bdca3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreymorrison/2018/02/07/how... [2] https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/roaming https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/roaming