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T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

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Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#131

Post by selectstar »

bnastic wrote: post #125
corin_ wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vodafone (UK) are awesome within Europe - when I am abroad I pay £2.50/day to use my normal price plan abroad (so I still get unlimited minutes/texts, and 6GB data, for no cost other than that daily fee). For calling European numbers they aren't quite as good, but for £5/month the prices drop from £1/min to between 5p and 20p/min depending on the type of number I'm calling. Outside Europe they're still awful though,…

Three got a little bit better - no roaming charges whatsoever in a number of European countries (i.e. no data cap on my plan). It was really handy to not have to worry about loading google maps and local websites while out and about in Italy this summer. Hopefully the list of countries will keep increasing.

Strange, my partners Three contract had a £5.00 per day charge in mainland Europe but with no data cap after that.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#132

Post by masklinn »

praxeologist wrote: post #128
masklinn wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, more revisionism. > When these patents expired, there were soon 80 competing companies which captured 5% of the market, rising to over 3,000 companies with over 50% of the market by 1900. And starting in 1907 and the return of Vail, Bell started massively buying them out, attracting the attention of the Justice Department and leading to the Kingsbury Commitment. Kingsbury was essentially repealed 8 years later…

All you are doing is proving my point. Bell got big and stayed big because of gov't intervention.

> Bell got big and stayed big because of gov't intervention.

That is some pretty serious misreading, Bell got big and stayed big regardless of government intervention, the government tried to keep control of it after being put before the fait accompli (before trying to break the company in '84, as you may have noticed that didn't quite work either)

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#133

Post by dasil003 »

skystorm wrote: post #88
mortenjorck wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a rather amazing deal if you do most of your talking on VOIP, but I'm left wondering what this disclaimer means: This plan is only available for devices purchased from Wal-Mart or devices activated on T-Mobile.com It seems to imply device restrictions.

It means you need to activate your SIM card for this particular rate at Walmart or on their website -- T-Mobile stores and phone support can't do it. Several of my friends have done just that, get a stand-alone SIM card and then activate it on T-Mobile's website.

Wow I've been overpaying by going into a store. I use T-Mobile pay as you go whenever I come to the States (twice a year for 2-week stints usually).

Do you know if I buy a SIM card and activate it for that deal will I be able to let it lapse and then re-up it when I come back in 6 months? Or will I have to buy a new SIM card every time?

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#134

Post by nathana »

The most interesting part about this to me is the $0.20/min voice price. Not because it would have a direct impact on me or anything like that, but mostly because it seems like in the US, carriers are falling over themselves to offer "unlimited voice" while restricting the data. This is the exact opposite.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#135

Post by aCCelerate »

Ah, all this roaming here there everywhere discussion reminds me of one of my fundamental wishes for a new startup to tackle: create a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) which essentially just roams everywhere (including the home country) but always picks the strongest signal of all available wireless carriers.

I hate to be in an area and not have coverage. I carry another prepaid sim card around just for that case but obviously that's a different number then. I'll be happy to pay a premium if that was available.

And then maybe one day we can also get rid of the sim cards and just do it in software... I don't get why we still have sim cards.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#136

Post by rdl »

I'm on a month long trip to Asia right now (today: Sendai), and remembering why I used to keep a tmobile blackberry and BES just for travel. Flat rate $80/mo unlimited edge to the BES (which I used for email and then tunneling IP from my laptop) was worth it even when I only used it one or two months a year; absolutely worth it when I was overseas full time. Sadly I let it lapse and am now playing the "find a local LTE dongle" game, which in Japan is a JPY 1260/day old Huawei LTE android device on SoftBank which is the 5th phone and 8th computing device I'm lugging around on trains and such.

Seriously going to look at MVNO options when I get back; running a pro privacy, pro customer MVNO, ideally based in a country with strong privacy laws, and handsets transparently configured to be safe for customers (even when the local carrier is turning over data..) would be pretty fun.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#137

Post by Osmium »

selectstar wrote: post #131
bnastic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three got a little bit better - no roaming charges whatsoever in a number of European countries (i.e. no data cap on my plan). It was really handy to not have to worry about loading google maps and local websites while out and about in Italy this summer. Hopefully the list of countries will keep increasing.

Strange, my partners Three contract had a £5.00 per day charge in mainland Europe but with no data cap after that.

Three actually recently announced a similar thing to this, whereby you take your contract with you to any country that Three operates in, i.e. Australia, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Hong Kong and the Republic of Ireland. Other European countries and you still have to pay their standard European roaming charge...

http://blog.three.co.uk/2013/08/30/feel-at-home-3/

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#138

Post by Avshalom »

cbr wrote: post #56
joelrunyon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just switched in April after hating life with AT&T and deciding to put my money where my mouth was. In cities - their coverage is VERY good. Countryside & cross country road trips are where they fall off the map, but I've been very happy paying $80 for unlimited call/text/data + No B.S. T-Mobile is way behind in terms of users & they know it - which means they're making strong plays against the competition. Makes m…

$80? Pre-paid that's $45.

pre-paid starts at 45 but thats with 500 mb at 4G speed and then unlimited 3G speed afterwards. $80 gets you like 12 gb of 4G.

Personally I'm happy at 500 but use cases vary.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#139

Post by localhost »

Idiosyncra3y wrote: post #114
mortenjorck wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a rather amazing deal if you do most of your talking on VOIP, but I'm left wondering what this disclaimer means: This plan is only available for devices purchased from Wal-Mart or devices activated on T-Mobile.com It seems to imply device restrictions.

I have this on my Nexus 4. You can either order a sim online or (as I couldn't buy it with a card registered to a P.O. box) buy a 20$ phone at walmart and swap the sim into your device. No device restrictions.

Most of the time the guy at the Walmart phone store will have a spare SIM card lying around and will give it to you for free. That happened for both my phone and my wife's phone.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#140

Post by thaumasiotes »

dasil003 wrote: post #133
skystorm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means you need to activate your SIM card for this particular rate at Walmart or on their website -- T-Mobile stores and phone support can't do it. Several of my friends have done just that, get a stand-alone SIM card and then activate it on T-Mobile's website.

Wow I've been overpaying by going into a store. I use T-Mobile pay as you go whenever I come to the States (twice a year for 2-week stints usually). Do you know if I buy a SIM card and activate it for that deal will I be able to let it lapse and then re-up it when I come back in 6 months? Or will I have to buy a new SIM card every time?

I was on that plan and let it expire. My account page still displays the plan, while noting that it's unfunded and I can't use it, so it seems that you can let it lapse and re-up. I've been curious whether that will still be true come the new year.
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