Best Phone option for travel to USA

[drewbles]

I am currently in the United States and purchased the tru-phone sim card for my iphone 3G (online through truphone.com) Received by courier 2 days later. Tested the sim and phone worked straight away, with data and internet working also after I downloaded an installation program from the website (in the words of Tony Abbot, I'm no tech-head). When I touched down in LA, switched phone on and started working straight away. SMS no problem, it actually works like clockwork. I used the sim card today to purchases wi-fi in-flight on Delta Airlines and book a limo for my arrival in Orlando one hour later. Very good! Don't get scammed by Optus or Telstra offering something similar at a truly astronomical cost for MB data allowance. Their data plans are $20 per MB (optus) versus 15c per MB for tru phone. I'm sold! I have also used the phone to message in LA, New York and now Orlando florida with no problems. It's great being offered the american cell phone number as an option online. And i can close this all down when i come back to OZ without any penalty until next time i travel (most likely Europe).

Word of caution for others reading this. Tru only uses T-Mobile in the USA, meaning that yes, you'll get 15c/mb data (Which is far from cheap really, but is cheap for roaming), but unless you have a handset that supports 1700mHz (which no iPhone does), you'll be stuck on 2G GPRS or EDGE data speeds, which are not very fast. It's fine for email and the odd bit of light web browsing, but it's not going to be fast. For all the bagging AT&T get, their network really isn't that bad (Optus and Vodafone in Australia are far far worse!).

Most companies will give you a US number with your Travel SIM Card these days.

Some even give you 3 numbers

 

[themaiz]

Just got back from a US trip, carrying a brand new unlocked iPhone 4s as part of an experiment. I converted my AT&T plan to the $2/day option and then used prepaid $$ to add 500MB of data for $25. A bargain with only one wrinkle: the data service doesn't work on an unlocked iPhone. AT&T help desk told me that the login for a Treo is different to the login for the iPhone which might be true but sounded implausible. Anyway he took pity on me and refunded the $25 to my account.

I can now confirm that:
• the $2/day option is magic
• I won't ever be able to run down $100/year based on my travel habits
• there's still no cheaper option that I've been able to find for a casual repetitive US visitor
• the iPhone is just cough on the AT&T 3G service. Apparently it should be run in 2G if you want decent audio and to be able to understand what someone is saying to you.

The data thing turned out to be very unfortunate, since I was one of those trapped in LA by the Qantas action.


Sent from my iPhone using AustFreqFly app

 

[pshepvic]

According to the AT&T website you can now use smartphones with data on pre-paid. Otherwise if you can't get it to work, there is a work around that you can use (either somewhere in this thread, or maybe another thread - or you can google the solution as it is out there!)

I never had any problems with voice quality on the 3G network - even in the Caribbean where I expected the worst! Only issue I had was slow data on the iPad prepaid plan occasionally.

 

[DeKa]

Just got back from a US trip, carrying a brand new unlocked iPhone 4s as part of an experiment. I converted my AT&T plan to the $2/day option and then used prepaid $$ to add 500MB of data for $25. A bargain with only one wrinkle: the data service doesn't work on an unlocked iPhone. AT&T help desk told me that the login for a Treo is different to the login for the iPhone which might be true but sounded implausible. Anyway he took pity on me and refunded the $25 to my account.

I can now confirm that:
• the $2/day option is magic
• I won't ever be able to run down $100/year based on my travel habits
• there's still no cheaper option that I've been able to find for a casual repetitive US visitor
• the iPhone is just cough on the AT&T 3G service. Apparently it should be run in 2G if you want decent audio and to be able to understand what someone is saying to you.

The data thing turned out to be very unfortunate, since I was one of those trapped in LA by the Qantas action.


Sent from my iPhone using AustFreqFly app

The data works, you just need to change the APN - visit unlockit.co.nz on WiFi, and pick AT&T and load the profile.

 

[themaiz]

The data works, you just need to change the APN - visit unlockit.co.nz on WiFi, and pick AT&T and load the profile.

Hey DeKa, thanks muchly for that. URL is now stored away in a safe place for next time as a very useful resource.

Unfortunately I'm back in Oz now and won't get a chance to test with an iPhone until January - maybe.

Presumably, the AT&T agent could have given me the right APN info, but is forbidden by corporate policy? He simply said that it wasn't possible to do any data with an iPhone 4S on the AT&T network GoPhone plan. But he refunded the charge, which he wasn't obliged to do.

pshepvic: re quality: an Apple staffer told me yesterday that he's also had voice quality issues with iPhone on the AT&T network. His solution is to switch down to 2G. I can certainly confirm (as a broadcaster) that I've had no problems with audio quality using 2G and my Palm Treo 650.

The value of AFF strikes again. I stupidly didn't make time to check the site, even though I was in the middle of the QF debacle. More fool me. Won't make that mistake again.

 

[pshepvic]

pshepvic: re quality: an Apple staffer told me yesterday that he's also had voice quality issues with iPhone on the AT&T network. His solution is to switch down to 2G. I can certainly confirm (as a broadcaster) that I've had no problems with audio quality using 2G and my Palm Treo 650.

The value of AFF strikes again. I stupidly didn't make time to check the site, even though I was in the middle of the QF debacle. More fool me. Won't make that mistake again.

Yes it's certainly a great site - I'll be in the US in December so will try to remember to report back how I go with the data on AT&T.

I haven't used an iPhone 4 or 4S in the US, so can't comment on the quality of those. On my 3G and 3GS in the past though they have been fine - could always depend on the area you are in and the individual cells of course. And I would agree that there are definitely more drop outs in the US than on NextG in Oz - I put that down to the network rather than the iPhone though, because I always had the same problem in the past on old 2G phones as well.

 

[drewbles]

I wrote up a guide to help people here: Guide for Mobile Voice & Data in the USA which may be of assistance for iPhone people.

AT&T dislike other non-AT&T iPhones on their network. Smartphones are ok but apparently they still don't like iPhones (unless they've sold 'em!)