So, recently I was on a trip to the US, and I decided that the scattered Wifi of the area wasn't enough and thought maybe I'd take a stab at getting a SIM card in one of my spare, unlocked phones. I'd heard a lot about some folks who get these unlimited daily cards for a low price. And seeing as I'd only be there for a few days it might be well worth it.
I'll tell my tell on my scenario below, but I wanted to get your opinion on what you do when you travel out of your home network. Do you roam? [ps - Forms look awesome now!]
Okay, my story wasn't that great or exciting, but just thought I'd share. First off I was heading to Bayfield, WI. And as I'm a bit of a pre-thinker I thought I'd better check out the coverage.
What I'd heard was TMobile has an unlimited option for $4/day. Unfortunately Tmo doesn't work in the area.
Then I looked at a program called ROAM, but unfortunately it backed on Tmo... so no go (little did I know that you could go with ROAM, and then pay an extra $1/day to use other carriers).
I ended up looking at a few carriers and saw that AT&T would work. I picked out my G2 which I had unlocked and I knew should work as it's from Rogers. So it should be compatible. A bit of Googling assured me it should.
I stopped in Duluth to get a SIM card and after I had looked it up I thought I saw a $2/day + $10 for 1GB option; turns out that after I got notices of hitting 100MB is that it's ACTUALLY $2/day + $1/100MB. And every time I'd want to add more data I'd have to go in and purchase another dollar's worth.
Still, not a bad deal, just a bit inconvenient. You had to put on a minimum amount into the account and I put in $20 (figured 3 days at $2 plus the 1GB would mean $16... so the minimum of $15 wouldn't cut ... or so I thought).
Unfortunately the end to the story is that coverage in Bayfield, WI was very spotty (it also had about 40,000 people flocking to a normally teeny tiny town... so maybe that played into it). With poor reception I barely got any data while there, and only got to refill like once. So the remaining few dollars will just eventually go away.
At least I kept my Sojourner badge for Ingress!
Moral of the story is to do your research, not just on plans but the coverage will play heavily as well.
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