AT&T's new International Day Pass

AT&T announced a new international roaming option today called International Day Pass. Long story short: it's probably not worth it. I was really hoping that they'd overhaul their plans to include free 2G data like T-mobile, and then have something like this day pass to get 24 hours of high-speed internet. Or perhaps keep their existing passport plans and simply say "your speed drops to 2G once you've used up all your plan megabytes.

  • You pay $10 per day, per device to access the data pool in your US plan, so you're still chewing through your megabytes back home while you roam
  • At that pricing, a two-week vacation for two people is a $280 supplement on top of your bill
  • As friends pointed out me, though, this might be a great plan if you're traveling alone on a short trip, and you're a heavy user on an unlimited plan back in the US
  • Renting a Mi-Fi in most countries is $5 a day and you can share that data with your travel companions
  • There are further terms and conditions which limit your total international data per month and may require you to view down-sampled video 
  • Recently more and more smartphones are being sold without carrier locks, so it's much easier to rent a local SIM card for mobile data while traveling.
  • T-Mobile's plans allow for free 2G roaming, which is usually good enough to look something up when you're away from Wi-Fi. I've used it in England, Scotland, Taiwan, Korea, and the Philippines and have only really had trouble on Boracay, but that appeared to be primarily because of poor cellular coverage in general. 


My tips for cellular roaming abroad


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