Prepaid GSM SIM for USA?

wisniak · 10-06-2011, 06:13

RTuesday, he has an unlocked GSM iPhone 4 with a micro SIM. But he wants a data SIM, not a voice one (a combined SIM is OK though).
I'll check out the eKit.

I agree 3G is not essential, he's going to use the phone mostly for emails & browsing.

RTuesday · 10-06-2011, 18:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by wisniak

I agree 3G is not essential, he's going to use the phone mostly for emails & browsing.

I'd still recommend using wi-fi for that, emails and browsing would normally be done at a coffee shop, hotel, etc. Much cheaper. It's nice to have always-on data, but across two countries for a short period of time it really does get expensive, an unneeded luxury.

inquisitor · 11-06-2011, 14:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by wisniak

I agree 3G is not essential, he's going to use the phone mostly for emails & browsing.

If you are browsing mobile websites, 2G (EDGE) may be acceptable, but if you go to regular (desktop-designated) websites, 2G is a pain. E.g. opening cnn.com generates a data volume of 1.1MB. With full EDGE-speed (236 KBit/s) this would take half a minute to load. However if you realistically consider average bandwidth to reach not more than 100 KBit/s this would mean at least a whole minute of waiting until the opened page has been completely downloaded.

PhotoJim · 11-06-2011, 17:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by inquisitor

If you are browsing mobile websites, 2G (EDGE) may be acceptable, but if you go to regular (desktop-designated) websites, 2G is a pain. E.g. opening cnn.com generates a data volume of 1.1MB. With full EDGE-speed (236 KBit/s) this would take half a minute to load. However if you realistically consider average bandwidth to reach not more than 100 KBit/s this would mean at least a whole minute of waiting until the opened page has been completely downloaded.

And to think that not that many years ago, I was thrilled to be able to do my web surfing via GPRS, and I didn't find the speed to be unacceptable.

Of course, those were the days when dialup Internet was still reasonably usable, too.

Website bloat sucks if you ask me - sites could be a lot smaller than they are and no less useful.

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wisniak (Offline) Member Advanced Member Posts: 92 Join Date: 12 May 2009 Country:	10-06-2011, 06:13 RTuesday, he has an unlocked GSM iPhone 4 with a micro SIM. But he wants a data SIM, not a voice one (a combined SIM is OK though). I'll check out the eKit. I agree 3G is not essential, he's going to use the phone mostly for emails & browsing.