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Over the past two years or so, T-Mobile in the United States has been significantly changing how the wireless carrier operates. For one, there are no contracts anymore – you can leave when you want and don’t have to pay any termination fees. Yet another awesome thing is that they will pay your early termination fees when you switch to them from another carrier and trade in your old phone and buy a new one.
Last year I made the decision to switch to them and I’m loving every single day now – no more overcharges for going over my data, unlimited texting, and calling in the U.S. Not only are those three things unlimited in the United States, data and texting is also FREE and UNLIMITED outside of the USA, and calls are significantly cheaper than other carriers. This has changed my life so much since I switched since I no longer need to worry about being ‘safe’ and not going over any limits… even outside of the U.S… I love it!
The fact that international data is free is what blows me away… other carriers charge over $20 USD per 100MB.. which is nothing. The speed is also reasonably good when using data in other countries.. you can also purchase ‘faster’ international data.. but I don’t think I’ve ever done that since most of the time the speed was significantly faster than what I’ve paid for in the past with other carriers.
If you are a frequent traveller, T-Mobile for U.S. residents is a must, I love how they are trying to be different and are succeeding – lots and lots of people have switched over and love it. The customer service is also very helpful and professional, plus most issues can be quickly resolved using their website.
Plans start at $50 USD for unlimited calling and texting with 1GB of fast LTE data, when you go over your speed is simply slowed but you aren’t charged anything. I’ve gone over the limit basically every month and to be honest the ‘slower’ speed is not really that slow.. maybe takes three to five seconds longer to load a website.. which isn’t that bad.
The bottom line is that T-Mobile will save you a ton of money if you frequently travel around the world. Also another cool feature is that they unlock your phone after about three months and you can then use a local SIM card from the country you’re in… which really won’t be necessary unless you want to do a ton of calling (the only thing that T-Mobile charges for, internationally).
Editorial Note: Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
Good timing for me to read this article before our summer trip. My wife’s iPhone has never quite worked correctly and she wants a new phone. As long as we can text each other with no additional charges when hanging out in London and separated, then that sounds like a good deal for us this summer.
There is a charge for normal (SMS) texts, unless you both have iPhones, in which case you’ll be sending each other iMessages (they show up blue instead of green), which are carried over the Internet and therefore incur no charges if you’re in one of the countries where T-Mobile provides 2G-speed roaming data for free.
Not true. All SMS to US numbers are free. They don’t have to be iMessages, you don’t have to have a iphone or even google hangouts.
I stand corrected – normal SMS’s to US numbers are indeed also free if you’re in one of the countries covered (most of the world).
We have this as our work phone service. Be aware that the data you get is typically “Edge” (slower than 3G).
In my experience I’ve always gotten at leat 3G outside of the U.S. And otherwise LTE always
In my experience the connection may be 3G but the speed is still capped to that of a 2G (EDGE) connection. But even then it will be a bit faster and more reliable than 2G – fine for checking email and pulling up Google Maps.
went traveling with my friend to northern europe a few months back … her T-mobile EDGE roaming was painfully slow – took forever to pull up maps or look for restaurants on yelp
esp when you compare that to LTE roaming, the diff is day and night. “free” definitely comes at a trade-off of time.
Good to know. I was in Spain and Italy last week and most of the time I had 3G speeds and it worked fine. I’ll be in northern Europe in August and will check then if the speeds are still painfully slow. Hopefully it won’t be though!
When I was in Asia back in February, the speeds were all either 3G or LTE and it was great!
I agree. I’ve been with AT&T since the iPhone’s debut back in 2007. Whenever I travelled abroad, I used an old old unlocked basic non-smartphone and buy a local SIM card. I switched to T-Mobile this past December and was very impressed with the international data! From friends, I heard it used to be Edge back a year or two ago, but nowadays the norm is 3G, and in some cases, LTE. I can foresee that in a few years, it’ll most likely be all LTE. It’s just safe for T-Mobile to say that you’re at the very least going to get Edge speeds.
I mainly use my phone for texts, FB (uploading pix and messaging friends), and google maps while abroad and the T-Mobile plan works great for this!
Note though that the int’l data plan is only applicable to ~120 countries or so. If the country you’re not visiting is not on that list, you’ll have to pay for roaming charges. :/
I just switched to T-Mobile on Sunday from AT&T. Traveling to Rome next week, Berlin and Paris later this year and excited to try it out. Thanks for all the info!
Even with the reduced speeds, they are fast enough for VOIP calls like google hangouts so you dont even have to pay the $0.20/min for calls =)
I love traveling internationally with T-Mobile and save all my “Welcome to …” messages, sort of like souvenirs. So far this past year, I have messages for Iceland, Russia, Germany, Slovkia, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, and Jamaica.