I just called up and requested for World class service as i do quite a bit of travelling overseas
The rates are not that bad. Calling to Europe (UK) is about 29cents a min
When we were there last summer (July/Aug) 2002, roaming was quoted to us at $0.99/minute. We didn't use the roaming feature much, but did SMS quite a bit (even at $0.25, it was cheaper than making a call if the topic was going to be brief). $0.99 per minute roaming was much better than when we there the year before and were told that roaming was $2.65/minute! For most calls to the U.S., we used a local phone card (much cheaper), but for family calling you (and not knowing where you were or when you'll be there), can't beat roaming at any price.
You roam (to other carriers' networks) whenever you are out of your home provider's coverage area, however, you are not charged unless you make/receive a call.
Originally posted by V205 How is the reception quality in other countries with your US phone. Say in UK? Anyone have any experiences to share
thanks
I was in Jamaica in November/December and the call quality is no different from being in your area in the States. The Jamaican carrier is DigiCell, I received all my SMS notices from my T-Zones settings and it is so nice to receive calls in another country as if you never left your home.
Originally posted by littlefuzzbear If you don't have a dual band or triband phone you'll have to get a Euro/Asian handset that is capable of 900/1800 service. You can either get an unlocked handset in Europe/Asia or you can look on such places as ebay to find a Euro/Asian handset. Be sure that any handset you get is unlocked i.e. it must have any network restriction removed or your T-Mobile US SIM will be rejected.
This was posted earlier on one of the alt.cellular.* groups.
The other reason to have an unlocked phone is that in many cases it is much cheaper to use a local prepaid SIM than roaming. A while back, I cooked up a simple formula to calculate when it becomes cheaper to use a prepaid SIM rather than roaming. I looks like this:
Break_even_minutes = Bare_SIM_price/(Roaming_rate - Prepaid_rate)
If a prepaid SIM costs $15 and local prepaid minutes are 25c, at $1.99 WorldClass rates, a prepaid SIM pays for itself in a little under nine minutes of use! At 50c/min roaming, it takes sixty minutes to break even. What WorldClass rates do is to push the roaming customer into buying prepaid SIMs. At least those customers who understand basic algebra.
The other thing is that WorldClass rates destroy any incentive for anyone to compete for my roaming business. Say I'm roaming in Italy. I look at the Italy page on V'stream's website and see that the 1800 MHz carrier "Wind" is cheaper for most calls than any of the other. I set my L7089 to seek Wind, Omnitel and TIM in that order. When I'm in Wind's limited coverage, they get my business because they're cheaper. With WorldClass rates, what do I care?
Pick the one that's not affiliated with DT just to p*ss off the company.
I agree that WorldClass rates in Europe aren't all that bad. By the time you make a roaming call in the Netherlands and tack on some in-country LD, because you're calling all the way from Amsterdam to Harlam, you get to 99c/minute PDQ. The problem is that Europe ain't the end of the world. There's a lot more out there. Let's say I'm roaming in Jordan (a real possibility, been there, done that) and I need to call some local friends or my hotel. Under grandfathered rates that call is between 27c and 44c per minute. WorldClass is $1.99/minute. I won't pay that, and I don't think any sane person would. In Israel (another real possibility) WorldClass rates are $2.99/minute! Can you believe it? Grandfathered rates for a local call are high at 66c-$1.10/minute but nothing like as bad as WorldClass.
There is simply no reason to even use your V'stream phone roaming at more than $1.50/minute. That's what Iridium charges for a call from anywhere to anywhere in the world.
Originally posted by kapha this means you have the flat rate/world class rates.
One other thing to keep in mind with Intl roaming. When abroad you may want to consider turning off your voicemail forwarding. Why? Lets say you in th UK, someone from the US calls you and you decide not to take the call/miss it or whatever, that call will then be forwarded to your voicemail which is a US number, so you will be charged a call from the UK to the US.
Obviously if you have a local number in which to forward calls in that particular country you can do that as well.
Have you ever actually been charged for forwarding to VM while roaming? I have not and T-Mobile has told me (in writing) that I won't be.
I got reamed for about $300 worth of these charges by AT&T (I know you're talking about T-Mo). Every time someone called and I didn't answer, I got charged for receiving a 1-minute call and making a 1-minute call back to the US, even though nobody ever left me a message (since with AT&T's voicemail set-up they get a non-standard message and it's not real clear what to do).
I wrote a strongly worded letter to them after a CS rep wouldn't give me sufficient credit for these calls as it was never mentioned anywhere on their site or in any literature that this would happen. Fortunately I got a refund and they posted notice of these charges on their site.
But I've gotten two phones unlocked since then and use either prepaid SIMs or a European one when I travel. I even go so far as to make sure I take my AT&T SIM out before I leave the country, as I think if it happened to get switched on and register on a foreign network, the system would try to reach you there until you reregistered on your home network, resulting in more charges.
I used my T-Mo while on vacation in Cancun, MX just a few months ago. I didn't get charged for outgoing unanswered calls, nor was I charged for incoming unanswered calls. I was also not charged for calls that were under a few seconds (answering machine pickup). Best of all, I belted out about 25 SMS's, and they were all FREE!!! The transmission time was good too. I usually got a reply SMS within a few minutes. The service provider was TelCel, and service coverage was decent in most areas. No complaints from me here! BUT- The roaming was $1.50/min. However my P280 is still locked, so I never looked into a prepay card.
Originally posted by hollisterdj I used my T-Mo while on vacation in Cancun, MX just a few months ago. I didn't get charged for outgoing unanswered calls, nor was I charged for incoming unanswered calls. I was also not charged for calls that were under a few seconds (answering machine pickup). Best of all, I belted out about 25 SMS's, and they were all FREE!!! The transmission time was good too. I usually got a reply SMS within a few minutes. The service provider was TelCel, and service coverage was decent in most areas. No complaints from me here! BUT- The roaming was $1.50/min. However my P280 is still locked, so I never looked into a prepay card.
Just so you know you can now buy them for $20 with 250 mins on it.
T-Mo Roaming and Mexico
Bookmarks