cedo

I have to visit Australia for about 15 days on a business trip to explore the new business markets and i am searching for some best deal or ideal cellular connection. Please advise me to decide which package, simcard or service should work best for incoming calls and internet usage during my stay.
Regards

J62

Suggest you repost this on the Australia forum, not Air Travel.

lcuy

Where are you coming from? T-mobile plans in the US now include unlimited free text and data in most countries, and calls made overseas are only 20 cents/minute.

DebitNM

We switched to t Mobile 2 months ago in anticipation of a 3 month stay in Europe. The service has been pretty bad so far. We were in Canada and far northeastern US states and could not get cell survive, or wifi. We had less than great service if we go 25 miles from home.

Well see how it works on Europe this fall, but likely to head back to Verizon.

lcuy

That's too bad, Debit. We've had great reception everywhere, even Cambodia, but of course it depends where you live and travel.
They just started a new promotion too: Four lines with unlimited text and talk + 2.5GB of 4G data per line for $100/month. Same international benefits as above...

DebitNM

Of course that price doesn't include the approx. $28 per phone each month along with $10 pr month per line for Jump if you want to be able to get new phones faster and not have to pay full price of phones.

Kathie

We switched to T Mobile before our trip to Paris. We had good data reception there and it was fast. We could not get data reception in the Poipu Beach area of Kauai at all over a 2+ week period, and we get dropped calls here at home. One phone in particular drops calls regularly. Verizon has much better service coverage for us. But the free data overseas is hard to beat.

cedo

Does any one can comment about the use of XXSIM and Telstra for this trip. Seems both are good but i am looking for the best option to save more.thanks

JaneB

Where would someone buy an XXSIM card?

MissGreen

Just turn data off so you are not connected to global roaming. That's what I do when I travel. I can still get texts and phone calls. Connect to WIFI at hotels etc when you can so you are not charged ridiculously high prices for global roaming.

I have never purchased another sim when travelling.

MissGreen

If you do decide to get a local sim, don't get a Vodaphone one. There are so many areas with black spots and coverage is dodgy. I had them and changed.

Kathie

MissGreen, having dated working was what made getting around Paris so easy. If you don't want/need data, than turn it off. If you want data, it's hard to beat the T Mobile deal.

MissGreen

Have data turned on on an Australian phone and you can get a bill worth thousands. My friend didn't realise about turning it off and was contacted by Telstra not long after she got to New Zealand as they wanted to let her know her global roaming charge was already $1000.

lavandula

I have experience of Telstra mobile and a few others in Australia. Telstra gives excellent coverage if you are travelling outside of cities - the best there is because they are the ones who built the infrastructure. However, Telstra is a premium service company. If you need telephone support they would be my choice, but if you are relatively drip-dry and don't need those services, they are really quite expensive. So that's Telstra. There are other much cheaper SIMs available, such as Amaysim and Lebara (I've used the latter in Europe for OS calls and they are excellent), and they are at pretty much every Australia Post shop (post office). However, if you are outside of the built-up areas I would not like to guarantee their coverage (you may have guessed coverage is an issue in Australia). I myself use Vodaphone because I like their service and for most of the areas I travel to their coverage is quite acceptable. Optus is also a contender for you - they are Telstra's main competitor in size and coverage, and are a bit cheaper than Telstra. In all circumstances I would probably only use voice and text, and not data, or data sparingly. Download CityMaps2Go before leaving home and use that rather than Google Maps or similar.

Lavandula

cedo

Someone on FB suggested TravelSim or XXSIM. Telstra is also good but i am looking for the best option. Can anyone please share their valuable recommendation. Regards

cedo

Dear julia777 thanks for your reply. can you please share more of your personal experience and guide me about the best call rates and internet related possible requirement leading me to the best one among TELSTRA or XXSIM.

janisj

cedo: julia777 registered just to post to your thread and was likely an advertiser.