texasdebb

I'll be traveling in France and Spain next month. I'll be taking my unlocked iPhone and would like to buy a sims card for communion and data that would work in both countries. Anyone done this and if so what company did you use?

ribeirasacra

any SIM card you purchase will work in any country.
The problem is roaming charges.
Purchase a SIM in one use in any other charges creep up. At one time we was promised that roaming charges were to be abolished in Europe.
So do you want one card or one card for both countries (if so where to you go to first), or a one based from your home country?

hetismij2

Roaming charges are being abolished in Europe, but not until 2017.
Not all pay as you go SIMs allow roaming, and data charges can soon rocket.
You will be better off with either two SIMs , which means two numbers, or look at what international SIMs are available to order before you leave home.

china_cat

Look at Orange. They have pretty good rates for travelers, and roaming may not be bad. I was investigating the same 2 countries and thought Orange or Vodafone would be best. For me, I was going to make a minimum of voice calls, and mostly wanted the data plan. Data roaming is the more expensive thing and very hard to get rates. Call roaming didn't seem like much at all, if its mostly short calls.

But i say this not having actually tried either. And then I switched to TMobile so ended the necessity.

Robert2533

Switch to T-Mobile and forget about buying sim cards from your iPhone.

greg

For those from the countries where many or all prepaid SIM cards roam in other countries, such as prepaid SIMs from Italy or Spain, it appears as if all prepaid SIM cards do roam. As hetismij2 mentioned, that is not the case. I have used many SIMs in Europe that worked only in the country of purchase.

For data, I have not found any <u>prepaid</u> SIM card usable in multiple countries at a rate close to the data rate without roaming -- except for t-mobile U.S.A. where data roaming is free. While t-mobile U.S.A. SIM is <u>not</u> a prepaid SIM, there is no contract to get penalized for terminating the month-to-month plan.

In Spain, I did not feel I got straight answers on data part. Some stores mentioned they had no prepaid SIMs with data, but I was not sure if that was a pat answer if the salesperson didn't want to deal with tourists even if their prepaid SIMs could do data.

Robert2533

You can purchase prepaid data and voice service from a number of carriers including Vodafone, MoviStar and Orange, but roaming will be expensive until the new rules come into effect. But none will be as cheap as using T-Mobile when traveling in Europe.

china_cat

Greg, what sort of roaming rates have you found? It seems impossible to get data roaming rates on any of the websites, makes it impossible to figure out.

texasdebb

Thanks for your input. I'm going to check out t mobile. If indeed they have month to month with free data roaming international plan that's what I'll do.

bvlenci

The T-Mobile data is 2G, which is very slow. People have reported that they actually got 3G, but you can't depend on it. If you just want to check your email, it should be fine.

Here is a good Wiki about European data roaming.
http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.c...European_Union

According to them, Orange has something called Mundo SIM, to which you can add their Go Europe option to get good data roaming rates.

Robert2533

Good data roaming rates verses free data? How do they compare? I've only encountered 2G service in a few places when out and about, and have not come across anywhere where we didn't have a decent signal.