packed

For those who are familiar with the Tmoble Simple Choice Plans, if I am in Europe and receive a call from the US, is the caller charged an international fee? I understand that incoming and outgoing calls to my phone while in Europe cost 20 cents a minute, but what about the caller? Since he/she would be calling me on my regular telephone number, would they be charged?

welltraveledbrit

Here's our understanding having used it for months in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. It depends where the caller is. If the caller is in the US and calling a US number they pay nothing extra, you pay the 20c per minute cost. If the caller is in Europe and they call a US number they're making an international call, they pay for that and you pay the 20c per minute.
If anyone calls you and leaves a message that you don't collect till you get home you pay nothing extra.

Here's my blog post about how well Tmobile worked for us...

http://www.somuchmoretosee.com/2015/...-t-mobile.html

Sher

I recently used my plan (Simple Choice) in Italy. It was fine but with one glitch.
I could make and receive calls. I could make and receive texts.
I could receive email. But for the life of me it would not send from my phone.

Anyone have any ideas.

xyz123

Pure and simple, you pay 20¢ per minute to make and receive in almost every country in western, central and eastern Europe (Russia is a big big exception). Callers to you are charged whatever they pay to your US mobile number according to their plan. The US, unlike most of Europe, does not surcharge calls to US mobile numbers while calls say to European mobiles are surcharged. And there are some pretty good deals especially in the UK. For example, calls on O2 mobiles in the UK on one of their plans cost 2p/minute. So often I tell friends in the UK not to call me on my UK mobile but to my USA number. Much much cheaper for them.

packed

Thanks for all of the help. Three calls to TMobile and they didn't seem to understand my question and said that the caller would be charged. This didn't seem correct to me as I have used ATT in Europe before and the US callers were never charged.

greg

It is not a priority for call centers/stores to be knowledgeable about oversea usages. It is just a fraction of their business for which they have no incentive to invest any training time. The most they would do is to be a robot and read legal department sanctioned scripts verbatim safe for all circumstances. An ambiguity exists in telling "US callers were never charged." Who are the US callers? In this case, it is safest to tell caller "there will be a charge." No complaints if there isn't.

Andrew

Yes, 20 cents a minute to YOU (not to THEM) to make or receive a call from anywhere.

I used T-Mobile twice in Europe (I dropped them over the summer, however). Yes, it worked pretty well in the countries where they have roaming agreements - but on my last trip, I couldn't use it in Slovenia, Montenegro, or Bosnia - I bought local SIM cards in the latter two. Data is supposedly limited to 2G, though. My old phone would only work at 2G (in Europe) anyway so I couldn't tell the difference.

If you have a smart phone that happens to support "WiFI calling," you can make/receive FREE phone calls with T-Mobile back to the US. Some newer phones have the "WiFi calling" feature and some don't. My ancient/slow Android phone had it, but my new Moto E 2nd Generation (with Android 5.1) does not.

I assume you have a smart phone right? If not, an old-style "flip phone" may not work in Europe at all, even if it works with T-Mobile in the US, unless it is a "quad band" or "world" phone with the right GSM frequencies.

I don't talk on my phone much or use much data, so T-Mobile became too expensive for me to justify keeping it just to use it in Europe for a couple of weeks a year when I visit. It's much cheaper for me to buy local SIM cards as I travel - and use Google Hangouts to make/receive free calls to/from the US while in Europe (over WiFi or using mobile data with a local SIM card). I already have a Google Voice phone number that I use anyway, so not an issue for me having a new phone number.

packed

I did sign up for Tmobile Simple Choice and got the $80 package which gave me unlimited data. free texting, and 20 cents a minute calls. This plan is supposed to be cancelable at any time. We took advantage of this using Waze on our phone for GPS, and not worrying about going over on data, and just using our phone in different countries without having to get a new sim card each time.

When I signed up, I explained that I would be cancelling this within a month because I was only signing up to use it for our Europe trip. The representative said that this would be no problem.

I did cancel before the month was over and had already paid my first month's bill and expected to pay for any phone calls from Europe. I was billed for the second month because of their "billing dates" which were not explained at all to me before. Five calls later, and probably an hour and a half or two hours on the phone to Tmobile, I think that I have resolved the problem.
I'm not sure that it is worth the aggravation.

Andrew

Was the $80 for two lines? The Simple Choice plan starts at $50 per month. ALL T-Mobile post-paid plans come with unlimited data. But at $50/month, your first 1GB of data is at 4G speed in the US; after you use 1GB, data slows down to 2G speeds in the US. If you pay more you can get more 4G data in the US.

In Europe, you'd only get 2G data anyway, so it wouldn't be worth paying for more 4G data unless you were going to use it in the US. There is no way to "go over" any data limit in Europe.

Even at $50 I don't think it's worth signing up for T-Mobile for just one month. Better to buy a local SIM card and use Google Voice to make/receive calls to/from the US while traveling.

julies

We normally use this plan at home so it was not a special purchase just for traveling. Just used it for three weeks in Sicily, and it worked fine. We even used it for GPS in the car using Google Maps (brought a car charger with us so the phone wouldn't use up all of its battery life).

xyz123

I agree, it's not worth the aggravation to sign up for a month and then cancel. If your carrier is T Mobile or you don't really care who your carrier is and T Mobile is a viable alternative for your day to day stuff, it's a real good plan.

thursdaysd

I have now used it for two trips to Europe. Since I travel for two or three months at a time it's worth it to me to keep the plan in the US (and it costs $50 plus tax etc.). I have no problem with the data speed, and it looked like I sometimes got high speed data in Europe. However, on both trips I had problems in some places in the south of France (Aix and Pau), and on the last trip for a couple of days in Berlin. Basically, nothing worked, or the phone worked but not data and text, and then suddenly it would work again. It didn't work well in the wilds of Buckinghamshire in the UK either, but I was staying with my sister and her phone wasn't working well either.

wtm003

I use the most basic T-Mobile Simple Choice plan at home with 1GB of data. Before I left for Turkey two months ago I set up unlimited data for the 15 days I was gone. There was no need to cancel and it was about $15. I think I had 4G most of the time and we also used it for GPS using Google maps. Even in the middle of nowhere we had good and fast internet access.

Andrew

wtm003: <i>I use the most basic T-Mobile Simple Choice plan at home with 1GB of data. Before I left for Turkey two months ago I set up unlimited data for the 15 days I was gone.</i>

It's already unlimited at 2G speeds in Europe. Getting unlimited data in the US does not give you fast data in Europe. In fact, I don't think your 2G roaming data in Europe counts against your initial 1GB of "fast" data in the US. If you go over your 1GB of data in the US, you still get unlimited (free) 2G data - unlike say Verizon where you are charged overage charges but at the same high speed.

<i>There was no need to cancel and it was about $15. I think I had 4G most of the time and we also used it for GPS using Google maps. Even in the middle of nowhere we had good and fast internet access.</i>

FYI, just because your phone says connected at "4GTE" or "3G" doesn't mean you are really getting 4G or 3G data speeds. T-Mobile is set up to "throttle" your data to slow it down depending on where/how you are connected. (So if you go over your 1GB while in the US, they then throttle you to 2G speed the rest of the month.) I use my phone in the US on the T-Mobile network (on Gosmart Mobile) and my phone is almost always showing 4GLTE, but I'm only getting 3G speed - I have tested it with speed tests (when I was on T-Mobile itself, 4GLTE data was much faster than what I get now).

T-Mobile will sell you a "3G data pass" while you are roaming in Europe to get faster data, if you need it. I have never bought such a pass while roaming in Europe because my particular phone could only connect at 2G there, anyway, no matter what pass I bought.

packed

Update, my billing problem was supposed to be resolved, but I am still getting calls and letters from Tmobile. They overbilled me, I made at least five calls, finally talked to a supervisor on 11/6 who took my adjusted payment and said that I had a zero balance, and am now again getting billed additionally. It is definitely not worth the time, even for the savings, to sign up for a month and have to sort out the bill spending hours on the phone with Tmobile.