T-Mobile Euro Internet Booster - cheap data roaming in Europe
 

This info was hinted at in a recent thread about cheap data roaming in Europe, but was inaccurate and incomplete so I thought I'd make a new post.

As of March 1, 2010 T-Mobile UK is offering a Euro Internet Booster for their SIMs when roaming in Europe. The 20MB for £5 over 7 days and 50MB for £10 over 30 days are the best deals. Combined with FishText, this could make a great way for keeping in touch via SMS when roaming in Europe.

This looks very promising for low usage.
I see them stating:

What is "Pay per day customers"? Is it some kind of prepaid? If yes it would be appreciated if somebody could include some short info about how to get and how to recharge these cards for non-uk residents (if possible at all). This looks _very_ promising; it's better than any MVNO offering AFAIK and it's T-Mobile so it should work better than mostly anything else.

T-Mobile UK SIMs can be topped up by non-Britons directly online on the T-Mobile website with AmEx credit cards (German Mastercard and Visa were not accepted when I tried it the last time).
Alternatively there's an online shop offering British top up vouchers below nominal value at Cheap Mobile Phone Top Up
See also http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/euro...ad-online.html

Ok, here is my first experience with these boosters:

- bought a prepaid "pay per day" data (although it had voice+SMS as well) SIM
- was surprised to find out that there's no roaming at all on these cards
- however the EU boosters ARE available to "normal" T-Mobile.uk prepaid cards and the type of the card can be changed for free every 30 days (support is quite responsive and available both on the phone and email). Once the provisioning of the SIM is changed you can't use it with a 3G stick in your laptop (I'm sure there are way around this but for 3 MB is not worth it)
- used once the booster for 1 day (3 MB = 1 pound). Activation is done on the phone, browser needed (you need to chose which booster you want). Really useful, did not even get to use all 3 MB (not even 2). Good stuff.

personal data usage / TMO booster
 

when i use my mobile phone for data, i do not stream media and i rarely surf a web page. my usage is client email, contact & calendar synchronization (google), and some rss (some rss usage does result in podcast downloads however). i also occasionally tether my laptop over 3G using WMWiFiRouter.

i'm totally baffled as to why my usage is so high. here is a summary of my last 6 months of data usage with AT&T/USA.

nov09: 320MB
dec09: 355MB
jan10: 680MB
feb10: 985MB
mar10: 488MB
apr10: 613MB

what hope is there of being able to function normally while abroad? are americans just spoiled with low rates ($30 soft-limit 5GB with AT&T)?

i suppose the TMO (UK) 40MB/day for 1GBP would work if i just get email headers and do not download podcasts. but the other rates i see (especially trans-europe roaming cards) are far too expensive.

are there any other plans for high usage? (i'm systematically going through all the thread posts so perhaps it's answered elsewhere).

how does anyone realistically get by on 3MB/day or 20MB/week or 50MB/month? what kind of ordinary usage fits those kinds of tiers? maybe i'll just adapt while i'm traveling.

He, he ... americans spoiled. The same T-mobile UK we're talking about has a special for one month for two pounds (2GB included). Normal price is 15/month (still acceptable and it's prepaid!). Of course this isn't roaming.

The roaming prices are daylight robbery, we can agree on that especially when roaming with the same company. As for low data usage it depends on your specific device but with phones if you don't download all emails that rain on you and you don't do multimedia you should be able to get by with 3 MB per day. That is by reading all emails you're interested in and with chat and browsing (assuming you aren't especially efficient at chat and browsing on a mobile).

Isn't Vodafone UK alright at least for short-term light use in the EU? They charge 4.99 GBP/day for up to 25 MB (though the 1st MB is charged 4.99 in 1 (or was that 10?) KB steps I believe).

Hi, does anyone know if this booster will work on pay as you go with a blackberry? I can't find anything on their website regarding booster with blackberry data.

Thanks!
Chris

4.99? I thought it was 50p a day.

Vodafone Italy has a new add-on for data roaming (phone use, not usb dongle).

It's called Passport Mobile Internet and it gives you 100Mb a day for just 2€ till May 31 2011.
After May 31 you get 50Mb a day for 2€ plus 1,5€ of standard national tariff if you don't have any national data option on your sim.

I think it's a pretty good deal for short trips in Europe. :)