Could T-Mobile (U.S.) new global plan doom the global SIM card business?
 

See Stu's post about it.

I have been a TM customer since before TM came to the U.S. and took over a couple of regional operators. (They now cover the entire U.S.)

TM no longer requires contracts on either pre-paid or postpaid accounts. While they have, for some years, sold prepaid plans, this Global option is only for postpaid customers. This means that it might be almost impossible for any non-U.S. person to get an account. Anyone can get a prepaid account as easily as walking in and buying a loaf of bread. There are no government requirements.

Maybe there is an opening for an enterprising U.S.(and/or foreign?) entrepreneur to "rent out" T-M SIM cards? He/she would have to figure out how to control all the SIMs on the account.
Individual and small business accounts are limited to 5 lines. First line costs $50/mo., 2nd line $30 and lines 3-5 $10 each. I don't know the structure for "medium" sized business's. Every line has unlimited text, voice and 500MB of fast data in the U.S. You can buy 2G of more data, for a per line cost of $10. After you use your allotment, you are throttled to about 128Kbs.

The TM SIM would be useful for almost any intl. traveler.
Eg: You are Italian. You travel to France or China or Costa Rica. When in those or any of the 100+ countries (called Simple Global Countries -SGC) that are covered, you can call back to Italy or any other SGCs for 20¢/min. Incoming calls are all 20¢. Texts, to SGC countries are included unlimited. Incoming text has always been free.
The Unlimited Data you get is limited to 2G - good enuf for email. You can buy different packages of faster data - but I forget the cost. Comes out to be about 20-25¢/MB, as I recall.

The extreme example of change of price: When we were in Vietnam 18 months ago, using voice would have cost us $6/min!! Of course, didn't use it. They are a SGC country - now 20¢.

Also looks like one will need to sign up for one of their monthly plans. And cancel it if one needs it for no more than a month.

but i don't think this plan is offered to foreigners

I have been a T-Mobile subscriber for many years. MY problem with this is how do you get a client to call you if they have to make a long distance call if you are in the same country. I usually have a driver, and I would never let him call me long distance if I had gotten his vm. I personally will stick with local sim cards. I find it a lot easier to deal with.

What could be easier, on your end, than simply using your phone "on the road" just like you do at home?
Stu seemed to mention there is some outfit that will sell? rent? you a foreign number to use that would forward to your home SIM. I am waiting for him to reply to a question about this. Sure would be easier than dealing with prepaid cards - and you just carry your home phone. Your problem would affect very few users. Calling a U.S. number is cheap for most people and they are used to doing it. There is no surcharge for calling a U.S. cell. There is for calling a cell in the caller's home country! The bottom line, the caller could probably call your U.S. number cheaper than calling a cell in his home country.
Of course for business appearances, having a local number might be the way to go. You could still use your TM SIM for outgoing calls, texts, and data (email). Just use your local SIM for incoming. No cost to you!

The problem is that to get a postpaid account you have to pass a credit check. That wouldn't be possible, I don't think, for foreigners. Maybe if you worked for a large company, they could qualify and get the account in their name. IOW, it's not the fact you are foreign is the problem - it's the fact your name wouldn't appear on a U.S. credit report.
I don't know if you could post a deposit.
I'll make some inquiry in a couple weeks once this whole thing is in operation. I'll be testing it out in China and Hong Kong 10/26-11/8.

Www.hushed.com.

If the deal was open to Overseas applicants , is it not the same as the AT&T deal where your Sim has to hit a US tower at least once every 6 weeks, therefore rendering it useless for foreigners unless they travel to the US every 4-6 weeks. These Guys are not stupid i am sure there will be caveats somewhere in the T&cS:D

I didn't see it on their site, but in a news report. You do have to "hit" a TM tower every 6 weeks and every 3 month period (12 weeks) half the time has to be in the U.S. I'll try and confirm that.
Doesn't the ATT deal just apply to data and not also voice and text?
OTH - Forgetting about the unlimited data - wouldn't the 20¢/min. incoming/outgoing be a money maker? I wonder what they have to pay the foreign carriers for airtime? What do they pay the carrier for text and data?

Well as it happens the only country that Stu Hushed link I could use is the UK. I mainly go to the old soviet block countries. I have a number for the UK which is on my business card. Hushed looks quite expensive once you have the card with monthly fees and calls to inbound and outbound. I will stick with local sims.

could use Keku for a very limited circle of friends and family - you have to register their phones on your account, so you can give them a local phone number for them that will connect with your mobile when you are traveling in their country.

I just received a letter from T-Mobile informing me that my old grandfathered plan will be converted to a very favorable new Select Value plan, which I presume includes the new roaming package. I must say that this will probably greatly reduce any need on my part for local or international prepaids. I'll still keep myTelnaMobile and Mobal SIMs as backups but but doubt they'll see much use.

DRN -
TM says they now have thousands of old plans out there and hope to get that number below 50 in the next few months. I would double check that the new plan they are giving you (probably better than the rest of us have) does include the new "free" intl roaming. In one place they say new plans after March 2013 are included, another place they say "Simple Choice or New Classic" are included.
TM is definitely not all together on rolling this out. It is supposed to start in 2 days on Monday Oct. 20 - and diff. parts of their web site have diff. info. One page says it doesn't start until Oct 31. Other pages say hi-speed data options are available - but they haven't posted the exact packages and prices, yet. (The free data they claim is capped at 128Kbs. which is fine for email and Google maps.)
I'll report on all this next month. Will use it in China and Hong Kong Oct 27 - Nov 8.

Over on Flyertalk's tech forum, there are a couple of people who have used their throttled data and said that it was good enough for Google Maps, cautious music streaming, and email.

Depending on its latency (remember it is throttled HSPA, not true EDGE), you probably could do VOIP Over 3g with the 729 codec.

Stu -
We'll be in China which only has 3G on one of its 2 carriers. I'll know which one TM roams on (both?) in a couple days. No HSPA there, yet. Only used wifi calling and Piranha when there last.

Let me be clear, I am only suggesting Hushed as a solution for ten days or less and then only forwarded to a cheap number such as a US or Canadian number ( or UK landline).

I am going yo Costa Rica on holiday next month. Piranha is .06 a minute inbound and Telna is .07. My wife and I have ATT unlimited international data. Unless we decide to tether, a single Hushed Costa Rica number forwarded to my Asterisks box and an IVR handles are limited local calls.

If I wanted something longterm, this is not the way to go.

Other places I get foreign DIDs are mydivert, didww, etc. I'd love to create a members only part of this forum where we can help each other out on foreign DIDs when needed. I run IVRs on many of my DIDs and if I know you, I have no problem forwarding some calls for you to a cheap termination point or SIP URI. Conversely, I have a few that I occasionally need. Since half of us have known each other for years, I think this would be an easy thing to do.

Snidely, sorry but I don't Turkmenistan DIDs laying around.

http://www.acronymfinder.com/Informa...ology/IVR.html

lists 17 meaning for the acronym IVR.
Here are the telecom related:
I am going to assume your usage is Intelligent Voice Routing.
Sometimes what is obvious to the writer is cryptic to the reader.

In VoIP terms IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response (voice menu with DTMF input).

Vlad is correct. Calling +1-212-555-1212, ext 1 rings my mobile, ext 2 rings my wife's, ext. 3 rings Joe Bloe. Calls from a specific mobile (determined by caller-id) drops you to a US dialtone, etc.

Wow. Thanks for clarifying. I really thought it was the one I suggested.
Now I know more than yesterday.

Another acronym is DISA -- Direct Inbound System Access. Since I have an Asterisks box (like Vlad and some others on this forum), it is often a good deal to temporarily purchase an inbound number in a country and be my own calling card service.

There are area also a number of free DIDs available for residents of various countries, but it is often a chore to get them when you aren't a resident. Additionally, you often have more capacity than you need. For example, my pay Australia DID which I use for calling card services for my brother can handle ten simultaneous inbound calls. It would be child's play to loan a connection to someone visiting Oz with a Piranha or Telna SIM which allows SIP URIs. At the same time, I don't want to go in business and want to know who I am dealing with.

just wanted to report T-Mobile roaming is working perfectly in China. 7 family members 5 of which are on TM. Texting a lot. Data works better/faster than I thot. Voice is excellent both to u.s. and local.

That is good to hear.

In response to the original question.
Only for people in the USA with T-Mobile.
But it seems to be a really good value for them.
Will people in the US switch for this? Perhaps some.
Will non-USA people be able to get it? Not too easily,
although perhaps for some Canadians it will be worth it.

Will/Can any other american carrier match this?

Cheap international roaming has not been much of a selling point for US wireless carriers in the past. International roaming been almost an afterthought and treated as a luxury item. American consumers have been willing to accept overpriced international roaming (with the exception of a few you find here). I think the word will spread but understand that T-Mobile's rates are not always the best. On some cruise ships they are much higher than ATT's.

Almost any carrier can match these rates. The only question is if they will choose to.

This might help T-Mobile compete better in more affluent segments and business customers who travel more. I've always gone with T-Mobile because of cheaper plans and ease of switching sims (easy unlock policy), but it's generally been seen as second tier carrier, with Verizon being 'premium' - despite their US only (almost!) non-GSM technology.

As I see it, this is a great perk if you're a US resident already on or considering T-Mobile's monthly plan ($50/month), especially for it's unlimited data. Even if it isn't at full 3G speeds, that alone would allow you to check email and do all the basics without concern of how much data you're using and the associated cost (previously very expensive). No other international SIM card can offer that as far as I know, and I can see this hurting those guys as far as U.S. customers go. Hopefully this will force them to be more competitive and start rolling out their own data packages, rather than offering data by the megabyte.

I agree - Even as a non-tmobile customer (I only have prepaid for my kids with them), I am considering giving this a try when next I travel out of the country. I will just sign up for their cheapest monthly plan that includes this, I think it's $50, and then cancel after 1 month.

Beware of T-mobile intl plan.
 

Look at the www. Milepoint.com in the technolgy forum there is a guy who called T-mobile to make sure he was on the correct plan. He spent a few hrs in the UK and two days in Belgium. He came home to $1500 phone bill. He explains it very well on the forum. So before you commit to this look at this person experience with this product.

Thanks for the heads-up. It certainly a glitch in their system. And his account is being credited for all charges. Hopefully, tmobile fixes all these glitches in the next few months.

http://milepoint.com/forums/threads/...n.73757/page-2

Over on Flyertalk people are talking about their 500 meg broadband data plan for $20 a month qualifying for tablet data abroad. Some people have put in iPhones, but I suspect there is no voice or text.

I think that carriers are very slowly recognizing that they need to do something. Everyone is doing something different. I've seen some roaming day passes in Australia. Vodafone has their passport service and even ATT/Verizon in the US are starting to sell roaming buckets of data.

TM charges $50 for the first line, $30 for the 2nd line, and $10 a month for lines 3-5. Unlimited voice, text, and data. (Data is throttled after 500Mb but you can keep hi-speed data for xtra ($20?) a month.

When logging on in China (and later in Hong Kong) got following texts from TM:
1.
"Welcome to China. Unlimited text incl. with your global coverage. Talk $0.20/min. More info http://t-mo.co/tc
2.
"Wifi call charges are free to the U.S., $0.20/min. locally. To all other countries: long distance rates (as if originating from the U.S.) [comment: those rates are high. You can call other "Global Countries" for 20¢/min. via cell tower in roaming country.]
3.
"Unlimited web included as part of your global coverage. To purchase high speed data please visit: http:t-mo.co/4G-data


Please note those URLs give error messages even if you add a .com instead o just "co". TM is obviously having initial startup problems.

EDIT I CAN LOG IN by clicking on the URL in the text msg on my phone.

Looks interesting but don't currently travel enough internationally to make it worthwhile economically versus other options I currently use.

Was just in UK, and the Tmob free international roaming worked fine - the phone showed 3g, and speeds seemed close to normal for maps, weather, etc. Certainly better than E or G speeds. I even called Tmob to make sure I was on Simple choice, and would get a bill shock!
only issue is not having local number, esp. when you call local people and they call back without checking. I can give them UK number that forwards, but people just return calls without checking, costing them dearly from their mobiles.

(sorry, make that "wouldn't get bill shock" on return - with reasonably fast 3G, I suspected I wasn't on the free roaming plan)

I really enjoyed the PIN2DEST service of CallbackWorld when it was operating. It wouldn't solve the problem of people just returning your call without looking but it was really handy to be able to give someone a number that was free for them. I used to give the local access number and PIN to my crew-members when we were in a foreign port and tell them that they had no excuse for not checking in. It didn't mean that they'd check in, only that they had no excuse for not checking in.

Mr. Prof - The speeds are only supposed to be at 128Kbs (Edge) on this plan. Most of us who have reported speeds from diff. countries and done speed tests get 127-128Kbs, exactly. IF you are on the regular (since 4/13) "Simple Choice" plan - you are covered. Don't know why you are getting 3G speeds. Maybe you r on a 3G network but have Edge speeds. Works fine for maps, email etc and rock solid audio streaming.
If you didn't get a warning text msg. about data roaming and got a msg. about hi-speed service being available for an extra charge - you won't get bill shock. Also, if you sign on to your account at my.t-mobile.com it will have a small banner "this account includes roaming in 100+ countries" (or words to that effect).

You can. ive used Line2 and Skype with 80% no troubles. not perfect, but free.

its very important to note it is throttled HSPA. my local TMo people call it EDGE when i hear them discuss it to customers. its DEFINITELY not the EDGE network. the EDGE network almost anywhere, US especially, barely works at even 20KBs. in about 10 countries in Europe and Asia Ive been to the klast couple months, it always throttles exactly to 128Kbs.

EDGE can and does perform reasonably well in some places. Two years ago when I was in Las Vegas I was exceeding 110 kbps on EDGE in Las Vegas when I did some experimenting.

You are right though... it's throttled 3G. UMTS is native 384kbps so it's 1/3 of that.

you do realize, depending on where you go, most country calls to the US are sometimes in fact cheaper for therm than to call a local mobile.... just sayin...

and heck, if you have a driver, hes making money off of you. he can call you!!

Sadly (but im happy asbout it), i have not such a need for this board any more because of T-Mo's new Intl deal. I just keep a OneSimCard and a GeoSim SIM anyway in case i hit one of the countries TMo doesn't cover...