T-Mobile International Pass Price Increase
Just noticed T-Mobile raised the price for the 1 day international pass from $5 to $10. Notably though, the amount of data included goes from 0.5 GB to 2 GB. The effective cost per GB decreases from $10/GB to $5/GB.
This price increase does suck but it’s still cheaper than Verizon TravelPass ($12/day for 5GB + ♾️ at 1 Mbps) and AT&T International Day Pass ($12/day for unlimited high speed and is capped at max 10 fees per billing cycle for consumers.) Verizon Unlimited Ultimate offering 1.5 Mbps speeds after using 15GB/month is highly usable for almost everything and is enough to stream 480p video.
If you’re a frequent traveler and heavy data user (over 50+ GB/month) (probably less than 1% of people) AT&T consumer postpaid is easily the international winner. TheI’ve used easily over 100 GB in a week when the place I was staying at didn’t have working Wi-Fi with no slow downs or interruptions in connectivity. I’ve had family members spend the semester in Europe with AT&T and have zero issues. You might run into issues if you’re in Latin America too long though on plans with Roam Latin America. As long as they’re paying carriers less than $120/month for your data usage, I can’t see why they’d have an issue but YMMV.
It’s almost always a lot cheaper to get a data only eSIM from providers like Airalo/Saily/Ubigi, etc.
Pro tip: If you do get a data only eSIM, go to your T-Mobile SIM if you’re on iPhone, use the manual network selection and find a network that T-Mobile doesn’t have a roaming agreement with. Just keep trying networks until one doesn’t connect and then your phone will show “T-Mobile using Cellular Data” in the status bar. Congratulations! You’re now using WiFi calling over your data only eSIM’s data connection and can call the U.S. and receive all calls without paying $0.25/minute! You should also be able to send/receive SMS including OTPs as normal. This is especially useful in places where calls breakout locally and there may not be as much freedom as one enjoys in the U.S. which means nobody (except your trusted friends at the NSA) can listen into your calls.
I wish there was the “Prefer Wi-Fi while Roaming” switch on T-Mobile SIMs like there are on Verizon that will show “VZW using Cellular Data” while roaming and it being the secondary SIM even with full bars. $0.25/minute isn’t a lot but it adds up especially when you have to work while traveling.