Sim Card for Data Plan
 

Traveling in 5 different countries: Denmark, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and France. I would like to use my unlocked iPhone 4 if possible to get data using a prepaid sim card (not interested in voice or text). Any suggestions on carriers in these countries, particularly Germany, Switzerland, or France? Also, if you know price points/have links to direct me that would be helpful. Thanks!

Lebara for France. Get the free SIM ahead of time mailed to your US address, then top it up.

Assuming your iPhone 4 is GSM capable model (that is not Verizon iPhone 4,) country specific SIMs with roaming capability is ok for voice and text, which you are not interested. But in other countries, it consumes balance quickly if you data roam. If you are not spending much time in any one country, the hassle of getting SIM for each country can be annoying. If you are from the US, one way is to signup for no contract t-mobile usa month to month plan with unlimited data (well, up to 500mb fast, slow after) that can be used in all the countries you listed.

Or you can go on ebay and buy a cheap ($25) phone with slots for up to 4 SIMs. It's not that annoying to get multiple SIMs and save yourself loads of $$$.

I would switch my service to T-Mobile and use their free data/messaging plan while roaming. Actually, it's quite good and very cheap.

And maybe you should buy only one sim card and use it everywhere.There are a lot of sim card that you can buy online and they will be delivered to your home. I have tried lemonsim sim card and I'm happy with them, but there are a lot of options out there.

The so-called "international" sim cards almost always have very expensive rates for data roaming. On the French page of Lebara I can't find what they charge for data services outside of France:

http://www.lebara.fr/appel-international

I was able to find these rates for Lebara UK. They have quite reasonable rates for international calls and text messages, but their international data rates are extremely high: £0.45 per mb. That looks cheap, but in terms of data plans 1 mb is nothing. Most people could easily run through £100 or more at those rates.

The EU has placed limits on international roaming costs (talk and data) for national providers. That means that if you buy a national SIM card in the first country you visit, they should be able to offer you a plan that has reasonable data roaming costs in all the other countries you visit.

The alternative is to acquire a different SIM card in each country you visit. This cost adds up, because not many countries have free SIM cards, and you always end up leaving some unspent credit on the cards.

My Italian SIM card has a great plan for international roaming, that's valid in the rest of Europe and also in the US. For 10 euros a week, I get 250 minutes of calls, 250 text messages, and 500 mb of data. They also have cheap calling and internet rates with no up-front payment, but unless I'll be using the internet only for emergencies, or be outside Italy only for a few days, I find the 10-euro plan cheaper.

Which is the first country you'll be visiting?

Very interested in this topic, too.

We have unlocked AT&T iPhone 4s and iPhone 3. I’m considering the AT&T plan, but have heard positive things about Lebara in these fora.

<i>My Italian SIM card has a great plan for international roaming, that's valid in the rest of Europe and also in the US. For 10 euros a week, I get 250 minutes of calls, 250 text messages, and 500 mb of data. They also have cheap calling and internet rates with no up-front payment, but unless I'll be using the internet only for emergencies, or be outside Italy only for a few days, I find the 10-euro plan cheaper. </i>

Which card would that be, bvlenci?

I am interested in this topic also. We will be traveling to three countries: Italy, Greece and Turkey.

adventure6: You might want to start a new thread of your own since you are asking about entirely different countries than this thread's tags.