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Phone for GPS in Italy/Europe--T Mobile Simple Choice ? Buy a SIM card?

Phone for GPS in Italy/Europe--T Mobile Simple Choice ? Buy a SIM card?

Old Oct 3rd, 2015, 07:33 PM
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Phone for GPS in Italy/Europe--T Mobile Simple Choice ? Buy a SIM card?

We'll be renting a car in Sicily with no GPS, and at home when we want to use a GPS feature we just use our phones. We have T Mobile Simple Choice which has international features. Here is what their website says:

"You will have unlimited web speeds great for web browsing and e-mail, social networking and occasional use of certain features like GPS/maps." When it says occasional use of GPS/maps it sounds like we shouldn't plan on relying on this.

Do you buy a local SIM with a data plan? Or, what is your typical solution? We have android phones.

I've already got the most detailed Michelin map there is for the area, and I am a big believer in this old fashioned way of finding our way around. But, I also remember the last time we were in Italy a few years ago we said we'd definitely return with a GPS on our next trip.

Thanks.
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Old Oct 3rd, 2015, 07:57 PM
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T-Mobile Simple Choice gives you unlimited data when you roam internationally, but they limit the speed to slow 2G, as I understand it. I have been to Europe twice with an Android phone and T-Mobile Simple Choice. My phone only worked at 2G anyway in Europe (a limitation of the cheap Android, I was using, I later figured out; even with a local SIM it was 2G for me). So I don't know what my real data speeds would have been with a better phone.

The issue with GPS mapping apps is the mobile data speed. The "GPS" itself - the location function, not the mapping - should work fine without any data. But the maps must be downloaded (e.g. Google maps). If you have a really slow data connection, loading the maps may be slow. It's possible you can preload the maps ahead of time on, say, WiFi at the hotel before you drive that day, but I'm not sure how that works.

Your Android phone should work in Sicily, but it may not work work faster than 2G even if you buy a local SIM card. It depends on the specs of your Android phone. Even my new 4GLTE Android phone doesn't seem to have the 3G data frequency I'd want in Europe (and not sure 4G would work at all), so probably I'll be limited to 2G again if I go back, no matter what SIM I use.

Check the phone specs - the frequencies - that your exact Android model has, and you can probably figure out how fast it will work in Sicily. If it has 900MHZ UMTS, it should work well enough with a local SIM, if you find the T-Mobile simple choice 2G data is too slow. (It probably has 900MHZ GSM almost for sure, but that's pretty slow.) Make sure your phone is unlocked, though, as well, if you hope to use it with a local SIM - T-Mobile may need to give you an unlock code.
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Old Oct 3rd, 2015, 10:47 PM
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I am traveling with a Samsung S5 and the Simple Choice plan. I have visited eight countries so far this trip. My last trip I had a much older phone but the same Simple Choice plan. My data speed has varied, depending on the local carrier. I have had 4G in some places and 3G in others. I do not drive in Europe but I have used the Android map function extensively.

However, I have had trouble with coverage in a couple of places. I was staying off the tourist trail with my sister in the UK and had almost no coverage until I moved to London. Now I am in Pau in the south of France and the phone sometimes works, sometimes only has voice, and sometimes doesn't work at all. I had similar problems in Aix-en-Provence last year. I had attributed last year's problems to a need to reseat the battery and SIM, but maybe not. Perhaps T-Mobile (German company) and Orange F don't get along...

Since you are going to just one place, and it's Sicily, it might be safer to buy a local SIM.
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Old Oct 3rd, 2015, 11:51 PM
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Why not download all the maps you need to your phone before you leave home? Then you don't need data for maps, only for checking your email etc.
I use my phone for navigation, in Europe and in the US, and download the maps first. So I downloaded California and Oregon before I left home last year. I already had all of Belgium, France, Germany and the UK on my phone, as well as the Netherlands of course (since that's where I live).
I use Here maps and Here Drive+ on my phone. It is possible to download on a small area - say Sicily, rather than all of Italy if that is all you need.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 01:44 AM
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We are in France now and have T Mobile Simple Choice. Data speed is fine here, we use Orange as local company.

No SIM card is need; just use your phone as usual. GPS works great for car or just walking around. It uses google maps on my Samsung Galaxy Prime.


We have used it in Italy with same good results, as well as 10 other countries, including South Africa and U.A.E.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 02:49 AM
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DenitNM - where in France are you? It worked fine for me in Strasbourg and Nancy this year, but mot here in Pau.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 03:51 AM
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I just used T-Mobile simple choice plan on a T-mobile branded phone in Italy. It roamed on several different carriers. I often saw WIND and 3 as the network carriers indicated on the status line of my phone. It was consistently getting 3G all over even on mountain roads. I also use it for navigation and it worked very well. Surprisingly it locked onto the locations faster than when I use the same phone in the U.S. Even without firing the power consuming GPS part, the cell tower triangulation alone quickly gave me much smaller area of the possible current locations than what I could get in the U.S.
I think the wording "occasional use of certain features like GPS/maps" is a typical U.S. legalese. Like Microsoft messages - correct but mostly useless. For for mobile data part, you are using the identical data plan for the amount of data as if you are in the U.S. Maps are ok for less congested areas. But as you approach even smaller towns, you have to execute several closely spaced turns correctly. Of course there are road signs - typical ones with perhaps 10 destinations going to the right and 10 other or even the same destinations going to left!
I could have picked up a TIM SIM since my phone is unlocked. However, I was not near a TIM store until about a third of the way into my trip and decided the T-mobile simple choice was good enough for this trip.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 04:47 AM
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In Lyon this week; then on to Provence for 5 weeks.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 05:01 AM
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I just did an overnight in Lyon and my phone was fine there. Got off the plane in Pau, phone worked. Walked into terminal, phone did not work. Got on airport bus, voice worked, data did not, arrived in town, nothing worked..... Had data this morning, tomorrow, who knows?
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 06:12 AM
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If you have maps downloaded in advance such as those from http://maps.me/en/home The phone's GPS function does not need either a data connection or phone signal to work.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 06:39 AM
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greg: I just used T-Mobile simple choice plan on a T-mobile branded phone in Italy. It roamed on several different carriers. I often saw WIND and 3 as the network carriers indicated on the status line of my phone. It was consistently getting 3G all over even on mountain roads.

But what was your real speed? Did you do a speed test?

T-Mobile says the limit the speeds to 2G with Simple Choice roaming. That may mean they throttle your data speeds. I now know what this can mean, because I have a 4GLTE Android phone in the US but am now using GoSmartMobile, a sub carrier of T-Mobile. I am basically still a T-Mobile customer, but my data speeds are limited to about 1 Megabit/sec, according to speed tests I have done. Before I officially switched from T-Mobile proper, I was getting much faster speeds on the same phone, something like 8X faster.

So even though my phone almost always shows connected at 4GLTE, the data speed is really slow.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 08:37 AM
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I'm sure data speeds vary depending on where you are. We had 3G data speeds in Paris, also had remarkably good speeds in Peru - even out in the rural areas. But we get no data at all on Poipu Beach in Kauai where we spend a month every year. And our local reception is spotty. I think we're going to get rid of T-Mobile after our SE Asia trip this year. Too bad - we love having free data on our foreign travels!
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 08:44 AM
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Kathie: I'm sure data speeds vary depending on where you are. We had 3G data speeds in Paris

As I asked above: did you do a speed test? As I mentioned, even though my Android phone shows "4GLTE" in the US, my data speed is throttled by my provider.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 09:15 AM
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Very helpful responses. Our phone is a Motorola Moto G capable of 3GLTE and we were getting that in India last winter.

"If you have maps downloaded in advance such as those from http://maps.me/en/home The phone's GPS function does not need either a data connection or phone signal to work."

With this concept, can we just download a Sicily map that would take care of us for our entire trip, or would we need to download every single route we think we might need?

Totally off topic: How do people get this site to italicize or bold?
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 09:25 AM
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format here:

http://ljkrakauer.com/tags.htm
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 10:56 AM
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Andrew, I didn't do a speed test, but Cheryl did, and we were getting 3G speeds in Paris and In Lima, Cusco and in the Sacred Valley in Peru. I'm not sure if she did a speed test at Machu Picchu or not, but we did have data there.
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 01:23 PM
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Just download the Sicily map. At least that's what you do with Here. I tend to use my phone in airplane mode when using it for navigating, as GPS is hard on the battery - make sure you have a car charger with you!
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 01:32 PM
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Good advice on the car charger and downloading the maps via wifi in advance. I agree with Kathie the speeds vary. Overall we've found Tmobile has worked well for us, we even got reception as we went down the Nile! Since we've signed up I haven't bothered with local sims when traveling.

Here's our experience on my blog..

http://www.somuchmoretosee.com/2015/...-t-mobile.html
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Old Oct 4th, 2015, 09:16 PM
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Putting the phone in airplane mode won't help with the heavy demand GPS makes on the battery. I keep my phone plugged into the charger the entire time I'm using GPS.
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Old Oct 6th, 2015, 06:13 AM
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Double checking here. It will cost me .20 a minute to make a call whether to the US or within Italy, correct?

If someone in Italy wants to call me though, that person will have to pay for an international call, correct?
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