You can get the TMobile deal from harbormobile.com for $30 a month.

For the folks who don't live in the US and are attracted to this plan: A Canadian friend of mine in Toronto got a TMobile account with a US credit card and address. Within 90 days they had him flagged as not being a US resident. And no, it wasn't Vlad.

Does he perhaps speak French? :)

What happened after he was unmasked?

They shut off his roaming. By the way, he was not using the SIM to roam in Canada. It may have been plugged in on his dresser, but that was it.

so there must be some T&C that you are not allowed to permanently reside the SIM in roaming.. We have such a carrier here in germany who allowes roaming free calling for up to 30 days in a row, then you have to touch home network again or you will be charged roaming rates...

Yes, there are T&Cs that state it's not for permanent use abroad. They don't seem to have any set criteria for how that is determined. I suggest to T-Mobile customers who are on an extended stay abroad that they occasionally post their SIM back to a friend in the US who will make a local call and then post it back. Not sure if that would do any good, but it couldn't hurt.

Just set a PIN and have a spare SIM handy.

yes exactly... my collegue who uses the german SIM in poland has actually 2 which he swaps every month ;-)

Not the same deal; harbor mobile (according to their website) charges $25 a month for voice roaming outside the U.S., in addition to the .20 per minute.

Yeah a US friend of mine did this, seems like it works fine :)

Several recent posts from people who have been using T-Mobile abroad for months, seem to indicate that you'll get cut off at 6 months and that just sending the SIM back to the US does not reset the clock.

so that means you should send it home and use it in USA for a while earlier than 6 months?

I don't know. It may mean that after a total of 6 months (e.g. 182 days) they cut it off. The only complaints that I've heard have been from people who used the SIM continuously for over 6 months. It may be that the system tolerates more cumulative time roaming in smaller doses. (A month in the US, two months abroad, repeat.)