USA visit for 15 days
 

My wife is visiting the US for 15 days in August, with her Aust GSM phone(s) .

When she did this last year she got the AT&T prepaid pack. Are these still available - either $2 per day unlimited or $50 per month unlimited? Or have they been pulled? If they are no longer available are any other pre-paid AT&T packs available for voice and data?

I can see T-Mobile has some but T-Mobile coverage isn't as good (or do they roam on AT&T for free?).

She will be imn NYC, LAX and Monroe, Al......

One more question - do either AT&T or T-Mobile provide micro-SIMs on pre-paid packs? She will have her new HTC ONEXL with her but it only takes micro-SIM. Alternatively she will also have her old HTC Desire which takes normal SIMs.

Thanks

When my family visit us in the US from the UK, I've given them a Truphone sim card, good PAYG rates for calls and data, and you can add local US number for $8 (a month, but easy to cancel) if an Australian one is your primary.
Just received a Piranha mobile sim, got it within 3 days of ordering from the UK based firm, comes with US and UK numbers, and cheaper than Truphone (as long as on Tmobile). Family gets that this August! (esp. as I'm paying!)
Both of these offer cheap rates to call back to Australia.
Tmobile actually has one of the best networks in the US, in terms of coverage and speed (and my Tmob vibrant worked well in Australia, so I presume some of the frequencies should match.) It does roam for free on ATT where TMob unavailable, though occasionally had problems with that.
You can get a PAYG sim card from TMob, but then you are likely to be left with a lot of unused minutes, and the credit expires in 90 days without more top ups. There is a new $3/day plan, unlimited calls and 200MB/day. Good deal if you are using significant data, more than a few emails. But will be very expensive for international calls outside the US.
Tru and Piranha last forever, as long as you send a text or something once a year, or so...

Good news is AT&T still has those plans (and a new $25 plan) and does offer both regular and micro-sims. Their prepaid service is called GoPhone. https://www.att.com/shop/en/wireless...paidplans.html
However, smartphone users need to purchase a data pack on top of their monthly prepaid plan.
Other options include resellers for AT&T that offer different plan options such as Red Pocket, Straight Talk, H2O, etc. or a dual number UK/US sim chip such as ekit SimpleCalling, Tru, Telestial Passport, etc.
Easiest solution might be for your wife just to walk into an AT&T store in a city she is visiting, and have them install a GoPhone sim chip, activate it, and tweak the data settings. Even if there's a minor charge to set this up for her, it would be worth it just to walk out the door with a working phone with voice, data, SMS and MMS all working properly.
Or it is possible to buy an AT&T sim card in advance over ebay or from various online dealers.

For their 3G network T-Mobile use a frequency band called AWS on 1700 and 2100 MHz, which very few handsets support. As AWS is only being used in North America such handsets are even rarer outside North America. So before you consider T-Mobile for data make sure your device supports "UMTS 1700/2100" also know as "AWS". Afaik there's neither an AWS-compatible version of the HTC Desire nor of the HTC One XL, so T-Mobile seems to be ruled out for you. A phone that support only UMTS 2100 (which is a common frequency in Australia, Europe and Asia) will not work on an AWS-network as it lacks the 1700 MHz-capability required for the uplink.
Your two devices could only access T-Mobile 2G network which uses GSM 1900 but would provide low data rates. So if you need fast Internet access AT&T is your only option.

Thanks all. Calls back to Aust is not an issue as we have both US and AUst VoiP numbers which can be used over data. She will mainly be using it for local calls and data.

The HTC ONEXL has the following bands:

2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
4G Network LTE 1800 / 2600

So it does seem TMobile is out. I assume the above are good fro AT&T?

Yes, AT&T's 3G network operates at 850 and 1900 MHz so the HTC One XL would be fine. As of the Desire's AT&T-compatibility it depends on which version you own as there are three:
900/2100 MHz [Model A8181]
850/1900 MHz [Model A8182]
850/2100 MHz [Model A8183]

If you got your Desire from Telstra it's probably the last-mentioned version, which could register on those AT&T cells that run at 850 MHz but not on those working at 1900 MHz, which are primarily used to add capacity in urban areas.
If it's from 3, Optus or Vodafone it's probably the first-mentioned, which doesn't support any American 3G frequency.

Is this the optimal walmart AT&T pack? Does it come with a SIM?

AT&T Prepaid Mobile Broadband - Walmart.com

I thought it was the 8181 but we did get it from Telstra so I guess you're right (and it has been used successfully in the US before which supports the 8183 assumption).

The desire is only a fallback if she can't get a micro-SIM for the HTC ONEXL. Hard now to pick up and use the Desire after having had the ONEXL for a few weeks :D ONEXL is damn fast!! and the screen beautiful!!

No, this is just a "pass" that you can activate for an existing SIM card which you need to purchase separately.

so the $50 monthly plan which states "unlimited data" - does that still need to have a data pack added? what then does "unlimited data" mean?

https://www.att.com/shop/en/wireless...ml#data_mobile

Seems that the $25 plan + $25 data pack would be the way to go....

Which could be the best option for a three-week holiday in the USA? Just need to make and receive a dozen phone calls (only simple phone calls!)

Generally, a T-Mobile prepaid or one of the MVNOs that run on T-Mobile. The exception would be if you plan to be visiting remote places like backpacking in national parks or something like that. T-Mobile often has coverage issues in remote areas (like Wind).

As DrNewcomb said, Tmobile or even AT&T should be fine for just calls. Actually, I think AT&T is $0.10/min and tmobile is more than that. Just visit their respective websites to see your options.

Close but no cigar
 

So my wife went into a NYC AT&T store and bought the SIM card kit. They apparently tried and tried to make it work with the HTC ONEXL but couldn't (not sure if they couldn't turn off LTE or what?) so luckily she had an old (3) iPhone with her so they put the SIM in that and she had to use that as her connected phone.

Pretty poor of them - it may help for others if someone could suggest what they might have done wrong - I would have assumed AT&T would know what they are doing :/

have a look at piranha mobile simcards...

In the US, the HTC One XL should work on GSM 850 & 1900 and 3G 1900. Unless there is some setting that restricts the HTC to certain bands, it should have worked on at least one of those bands. Don't know about the LTE.

It should have worked. A family member visited from the UK with that same phone, it worked with an AT&T prepaid sim without problems.