Hello fellow travelers, I travel to France a lot and do add other countries and have future plans for Italy, Spain, Croatia, England, Ireland etc... I am thinking to switching to Tmobile. In the past I am with Verizon and have paid the 10 dollars a day for Global Connections. I need to have very good cell and data service for navigation and web surfing etc. Anyone have recent experience in Europe with Tmobile? Thank you in advance.

Hi, I have T Mobile and used it most recently in Europe in July in France and Italy. No extra daily fee, text and data free, calls 5 cents a minute. I don't even have to notify them I'm going. My phone detects the country I'm in and it's good to go, very easy!

Thank you for your time and for reply me know. How was the data usage? I need to use as much as I do at home because of navigation etc...

We don't have T-mobile but have been considering switching from Verizon but have been concerned that the data usage and speed at 2G won't work for us. It looks like they might have some plans called simple global to increase the usage and speed that might be worth a look-we are going to talk to them about those options. Here's some info from their site:

We have T-Mobile and have used it in Barcelona, Granada and Seville last year; and in Paris, Cinque Terre, Florence and Venice a couple of years ago. I believe we had 3G in most of the countries so we were able to use it for navigation just fine. I know there's a map feature where you can download the map so you can see it offline. And just for back up, I like to screen shot the directions..just in case!

We love having t mobile/ Works great except for sending pictures via text.

T-Mobile's roaming data is free and unlimited, but speed is "throttled" (slowed down) to 2G speed on purpose. Your phone will connect to the fastest 4GLTE networks available in Europe (the ones your phone can connect to - different frequencies are used for LTE in Europe than in the US), but your data will still be slow no matter how fast the network is your phone is on. This is intentional. It keeps T-Mobile customers from using too much free data when they travel, but the ones frustrated with the slow 2G speeds can also buy data passes from T-Mobile.

(Sprint has basically the same international roaming plan as T-Mobile; the two companies are trying to merge now.)

Will the T-Mobile slow 2G data be fast enough for you? Maybe. Some people get by with it. I used it on a couple of trips. Speeds varied. I've since moved on from T-Mobile, though. Their prices for regular US service are much more expensive than I need for regular mobile use. I look not just at the price of my phone while I travel - I look at it for the whole year, including the time I travel. I now pay $15/month for unlimited talk + text with Mint Mobile (uses the T-Mobile network and get 3GB/month of fast data) - but no free roaming data like T-Mobile offers. I save hundreds of dollars per year on my mobile bill. For the one trip a year I've been making to Europe, I simply use a Dutch Vodafone SIM (free roaming data in most of Europe). On my last trip to Italy a few months ago, I spent a whopping 9 Euros for 2GB of data, more than enough for my ten day trip.

If you really don't want to mess with SIM cards when you travel, Google Fi may be your best bet (for Americans only). Still more expensive than I need personally but might be cheaper than T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T when you factor in annual use + roaming. Fi charges you only for the data you use but caps your bill if you use too much.

Aside from high costs, lousy coverage and customer service from AT&T, the T Mobile international freebies convinced me to switch. Just over two years and travel to several countries on two continents and I remain a happy camper. The 2G data speed has not been an issue in international travel, perhaps because WiFi has been so ubiquitous where I've ventured.

@kalnalcl - is that recent? Out T Mobile voice is .25/min when roaming internationally. Free using WiFi calling, of course.

Internet speed makes much difference in using Google map. Using Google map in Denmark and UK, for example, is totally different experience... As Denmark offers way better reliability and speed, though at lower cost...

For Google Maps, you can download maps in advance when you have access to wifi. Then you won't need data at all to navigate. However, you won't have access to last-minute traffic information. 2g data speeds are usually fine for email, as long as there are no large attachments or image-heavy mails. Some email programs allow you to get a preview of big messages before deciding whether to download them. Or you can check your email when you have wifi.

One of my daughters switched to T-Mobile a few years ago so that she could avoid roaming charges in Europe. However, they had terrible reception where she lives. Then, once, on a trip to England she couldn't connect at all, so that was the final straw. Now she has Vodaphone, and uses an Italian SIM card when she visits me, and for other European trips.

Hi,

Yes, I just got back last month. I thought it would be $.25/minute, but I was only charged .05. I used my phone for navigation and my daughter often used it for streaming movies and music and had no issue at all with speeds in Italy, France and Portugal.

That's interesting, because T-Mobile advertises the price as 25 cents/min on their website for "Essentials," "Magenta® plans," and "Magenta® Plus plans" plans:

https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/roaming

If you got a 5 cents/min rate somehow, it would be nice to know how.

I switched to Tmobile just before my five week trip to Italy, Coratia and France this summer and loved it. No issues at all. Sent texts with photos and short videos every day. Used maps extensively. I didn't need or want to stream movies so don't know about that.

I switched to (back to) T-Mobile in May 2016 just before going to Europe for 2.5 weeks, and I too had no issues. (Then I switched away from T-Mobile once I got home.) But some people claim they've been told that T-Mobile's roaming won't work until you've been a customer for a while. (Shrug.) I had no trouble in 2016 and you had none in 2019. I'm guessing it's still OK to switch to them just before a trip.

T-Mobile in the UK is now called EE which is the name you'll see on your screen. It uses 3G minimum.