I am a rooted Verizon vs996 user (also use the us998 twrp rom as well (currently on vs996). My wife and I are going for a 2-3 week cruise next week around the British Isles. I am wondering how people use their Verizon LG v30 overseas so as not to incur huge phone/data minutes and bills?
A couple of suggestions are to buy a pre paid sim card once we have arrived or I also know that Verizon offers different plans, but they seem quite expensive ($10.00 per day per phone as an example?). Not sure of the pricing on pre paid sim card. Other ideas? (remembering we each have a phone +my wife's new apple iPad).
Or plan is not to use the phone for a lot of calls or emails, but to be able to periodically check emails and texts from family mostly and I have to be able to surf the internet (read xda[emoji3]).
I have the rooted LG v30 and my wife has an iPhone.
Any suggestions, recommendations or advice?
Thx
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app
As I recall, VZ offers international roaming, and IIRC it wasn't that badly priced, so you may want to look into that: https://www.verizonwireless.com/solutions-and-services/international-travel/
Of course, local SIM-carding is certainly going to be lower cost, if you can figure it out. I think it just involves plugging in a local SIM and off you go? But I'm not sure as I've never done it.
When we went to Jamaica, I simply disconnected the cell radio, and relied on wifi for everything. That worked fine for us (I try to remain disconnected on vacation anyway)... and if I had to make a call, I used Wifi and Google Hangouts Dialer to make the call at no cost. Sounds like this may work for you, overall, since you're only planning to use email/text anyway. Note, I used Hangouts for texting as well, since it worked on Wifi too. I believe the new Google Messages will do that now, as well, so you may be able to just use that (makes it easier than explaining to people why you have two phone numbers).
Related
Hi:
Up until now, I have been using T-Mobile ever since the XDA came out.
Used a "visorphone" before that. I do NOT use T-Mobile's Internet access (T-zones) ever since I got hit with a $180+ overage charge the first month I used it.
So.
Here is my issue:
Starting a few months ago, I noticed that, even though I do NOT use T-Mobile for any Internet access (I call up my own ISP instead from the XDA), T-Mobile are charging me something like $.50 for every email sent or received from the XDA using my own ISP. I suppose they monitor the traffic or something. When I protested that they shouldn't charge me for anything Internet-related, only the minutes used to call my ISP, they told me basically that they don't give a damn what I think, and that I will continue to be charged $.50 for every email. They show up on my bill as "e-note" to the phone number "500."
I think that's ridiculous and possibly illegal since it doesn't involve their servers or their services at all, but I don't have the energy to deal with their untrained "Wireless Data Group." It would take years to explain this to them. Just getting them on the phone took over 1 hour. This is partly a warning post, that this is what T-Mobile is doing, and we should know about it. So, I am looking into switching to AT&T.
My questions for anyone reading this:
1) anyone else have that billing issue with t-mobile?
2) is at&t any better? do they charge for internet traffic even if you haven't signed up for their services?
3) i don't think i have simlock issues, the unlock util from this site says that it's already unlocked. rom is 4.00.21 ENG, radio stack 6.24.00
from yorch.net.
4) is there anything i should know? won't this t-mobile build of "windows mobile 2003" rom work with at&t ?
any info appreciated, you can email thomas at pullen.com (removed the @ for the spam bots).
thanks!
TMO is pretty bad, iv experienced their levels of ignorance too, but once in a while, u can incounter sumone who knows alot about what they do
you should have never used tzones (if it wasnt unlimited) for transfering big amounts of data, thats why u got charged so much, for going over the allowd data amount
when connecting to your own ISP, are u connecting using THEIR # ? ... if so, then i dont know where TMO gets these ideas 4 charging u extra + the phone call :roll:
to unlock u need to go back to a 2002 rom, with the unlock software
ur build will work, but it would be better to switch to 4.00.05 , since u wont need all the useless TMO apps and what not
Hey tpullen,
Sorry to hear about your terrible time with T-Mobile.
Q: What type of plan do you have with T-Mobile?
If its only a voice plan with no data the .50 sounds about right and will be the same if you move over to AT&T. As a matter of fact AT&T's data charges are higher.
It doesn't matter that you're calling your own ISP, the fact still remains you're sending/receiving data on a voice only plan. :wink:
HTH
thanks
hey:
thanks for the replies. to answer your questions:
i had the t-mobile 3,000 minutes for $49 plan. it is only free long distance for the southeast u.s.; i think it's called a 'neighborhood' plan.
no data at all in my plan; i would call my own isp and surf the web and check email. only about 3 months ago t-mobile started charging me to check email, but not for the web. my complaint is that i am using my own isp, and the call comes out of my minutes. yes, it's sending data with a voice-only plan, but hey! i have a dial-up phone line, nothing fancy, a land line in my house. it's voice-only. if i plug a modem into my home phone line and call my isp, should i expect to get a bill from my phone company for every email i look at? to my way of thinking, and anyone is free to disagree, if i'm not USING your services then i don't want to PAY for your services. unless it is a t-mobile email, web, or proxy server i'm talking to, i don't expect to pay t-mobile. the minutes were already being deducted from my available minutes. that's all i should have to pay.
i don't think that's so outrageous.
i did unlock my phone with the xda dev build, then went back to the same tmobile windows mobile 2003 build. i wasn't sure if the xda "stays unlocked" once you unlock it and then put a new rom on, but it does.
now i have an at&t sim, and it works well enough, but the sort-of-funny thing is that you apparantly can NOT just call your own isp with at&t.
i can't seem to get a connection to work. so i don't know. maybe i will stay with at&t since they, according to their sales literature anyway, have a data network that's like 3 times faster than t-mobile's data network.
of course it's more $ for them.
whatever the case, i have 30 days to try at&t with no obligation, cancel any time, owe them nothing. everyone has that option right now, in fact, due to the new ftc "local number port" thing happening.
i'll let ya'll know how it goes if i stick with at&t. i can always stay with t-mobile, but i'm not sure if that's a good idea.
Re: thanks
tpullen said:
maybe i will stay with at&t since they, according to their sales literature anyway, have a data network that's like 3 times faster than t-mobile's data network. of course it's more $ for them.
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Click to collapse
Sounds like you're talking about the EDGE service. Yeah, like 4 times the cost of T-Mobile's unlimited plan. I think I'll stick to the cheaper slower service.
tpullen said:
whatever the case, i have 30 days to try at&t with no obligation, cancel any time, owe them nothing. everyone has that option right now, in fact, due to the new ftc "local number port" thing happening.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Owe them nothing?! You might want to read that literature again. You'll not pay a cancellation fee nor an activation fee, but you will owe them for the prorated amount of time you had service, and any other additional fees that you use. This is pretty standard in the wireless industry. So if you go over your prorated minutes for the month, you owe them airtime charges. Happened to me, so just be careful.
bye bye at&t
hi arkhangel:
yes, you are correct:
4. Every new customer gets a 30 day risk free trial. When you purchase a phone and activate service at an AT&T Wireless store or at attwireless.com, you can return your undamaged phone for a refund within the first 30 days and pay only for airtime and usage charges. It’s just one more way we can earn your trust.
so it is not without charge, and thank god i only made one 6-minute call.
as far as the EDGE network goes, it was so-so...i only viewed 2 webpages with it, they loaded pretty much as quickly as with any other data service over the xda...and the funny thing is that it consumed apparantly almost 2 mb to do so.
i am pretty frustrated now, the at&t customer service has been pretty rotten, but t-mobile isn't too great either.
i'm calling verizon next, to compare...
tpullen said:
They show up on my bill as "e-note" to the phone number "500."
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Click to collapse
The phone is programmed to send an SMS to T-Mobile every time you reboot your PPCPE. These show up as e-notes to 500 just as you describe. Compare the timing of your email use vs. the timing of your reboots and see where the e-notes are coming from. I think you can purchase a bundle of a bunch (500?) of SMS messages (aka e-notes) for something like $2.99, so you could cap your cost that way.
You should also be aware that T-Mobile has gone to a flat rate for GPRS at $19.95 for unlimited internet. The comparable plan with AT&T is something like $80.
I'm coming off the HD2 which other than WM never had a problem with, it was fully rooted running the latest Android builds.
I got the Amaze over the weekend and switched sims. I don't live in a particularly good area for tmo coverage so fired up the wifi and everything seemed good till I'm at work on Monday, no 4g or any data coverage. Called Tmo, incredibly frustrating experience dealing with their automated attendant, here's a tip, just keep telling it you want to UPGRADE, once it thinks you want to spend money it will pop you to a rep. So the rep tells me I need the new sim, ok, it's at home so when I get back pop that in, call 611, 15 minutes of dealing with the auto attendant, multiple I'm hanging ups until I say that magic word "upgrade". Get the sim activated, wait overnight, no data connection. Call 611 again, "upgrade" ok right over to a rep who tells me I also need a new data plan for $30 which is $6 more than I pay now, so OK what are you going to do the phone doesn't work as is, upgraded to the new data plan and now it does.
Arghh, hope this helps.
If you just say 'Cancel', the automated system will get you over to Customer Loyalty. They are the best group to deal with as they have access to everything and can make deals on phones, etc.
Is there a corporate store near you? I highly suggest you go to the store and try to find someone to speak to in person about your issues. They will resolve them. They can't cancel in the store, but they'd be more than happy to assist you.
I was wondering if T-mo offers employee discounts from other businesses. I have sprint now and will be leaving them soon and I work at Target so sprint gives me 20% off my monthly bill.
daswahnsinn said:
I was wondering if T-mo offers employee discounts from other businesses. I have sprint now and will be leaving them soon and I work at Target so sprint gives me 20% off my monthly bill.
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Click to collapse
They do, but I don't know is they offer one for Target. They also offer AAA discounts.
Contact customer care and ask if Target has a discount available.
It's called MCSA and the reps have a list of all the corporate nodes available to customers. Often times your bill cycle will change to match those of the corporate node so that's something you have to bear in mind.
Had the same thing happen to all 3 HD2s that I upgrade from .. all running latest NAND androids
after the same frustration, it's an issue with the network,
finally I called like 4X
and one tech explained, it's going from HD2 (which is WM) to ANDROID (even though it had android on it) so we powered down the WEB(DATA) on my plan, "changed it over", powered down my phone and turned it back on and DATA is working fine since then,
MIND you, it was working fine day one, I also went to work, it was working fine(well i thought since I was online but with wifi) I didn't noticed until like 20 minutes into my drive I got no emails (I get emails from work like every 2mins)
thats when I started calling TMO
***update, (got 3 different contacts)
----on both had frustration, last one, I explained, switch over my web from WM to ANDROID, tech said uh ok, didnt even power down my phone 2 mins later , working fine, so in all took like 10 mins on phone if that and all because of the automated person
Thanks, guys I will have to call and find out. To me that's icing on the cake and not a deal breaker.
EDIT: It's 10% not much but anything is better than none.
Hello,
I'm moving to the US (DC) after 8 yrs as an expat and I need a new phone + carrier. I'm coming from an iPhone 3GS I lost a month ago, but I've never experienced fast 3G, never been able to watch video on a phone, and no longer eat up voice minutes. Truth be told, I'm probably a value customer looking for a plan with more data than voice. And chances are I'll probably go abroad again in 2 years and would prefer to still be able to use this phone unlocked internationally.
Q1: Which carrier should I go with, ATT/Verizon/Tmobile/Sprint/USCellular?
Q2: Are there any prepaid plans that are a better fit?
many thanks!
mixersoft said:
Hello,
I'm moving to the US (DC) after 8 yrs as an expat and I need a new phone + carrier. I'm coming from an iPhone 3GS I lost a month ago, but I've never experienced fast 3G, never been able to watch video on a phone, and no longer eat up voice minutes. Truth be told, I'm probably a value customer looking for a plan with more data than voice. And chances are I'll probably go abroad again in 2 years and would prefer to still be able to use this phone unlocked internationally.
Q1: Which carrier should I go with, ATT/Verizon/Tmobile/Sprint/USCellular?
Q2: Are there any prepaid plans that are a better fit?
many thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Family and I are ATT and Verizon customers. Both these carriers use a tiered billing system for Data Plans. $$ for 1GB/Month, $$ for 2GB/Month and so on. 3G is not as fast as you would think. A Streamed movie is smooth if your standing still and not using an over stressed cell tower, it's choppy if your moving (a car or train) as it loses speed when switching from one cell tower to the next.
As for unlocking the phone. You have a few options. In the US once your contract term is fulfilled (usually 2 years) you own the phone and a simple call to your carrier and they will unlock it for you or you can unlock the phone using third party software (Jail-breaking).
Hey guys, I know there are other threads like this in the 7 inch but "this may be crazy, so call me maybe." but all terrible pop culture jokes aside, I am planning on using a GT 10.1 as a phone. I current have a Droid Charge on Verizon, which I am fond of, but I am always looking for something new/different.
My plan is to save lots of money by doing this, be quite unique, and functional.
Yesterday I purchased a GT10.1 with service capabilities (Is that the 10.1v?) and it should be here next week. And no I did not pay $800 from Verizon. Also, my main reason for this is I'm that weird person that doesn't like their phone in their pocket. I am always checking for it because I can't feel it. With this, I will always have it in my hand or somewhere close. *NOTE* I'm not attached to it, I just like to know where it is at all times.
I was mainly posting to see if anyone has done this with the 10.1 and any problems they ran across, or tips, tricks, anything to help me out on this transition. I will be dropping my unlimited plan to save money, and getting a 1 or 2GB plan, seeing as I am on WiFi 99% of the time being at a college campus.
If anyone has other program suggestions than the following, please step in. That is why i'm posting! If all possible I would like to keep my phone number, I'm not sure if that is possible due to me switching contracts and not having a mobile plan.
As of now, I plan on doing the following:
Galaxy Tab 10.1 16GB
-Caller: GrooveIP (Uses Google Voice) (Or should I use something along the lines of skype?)
-Messenger: N/A (Need one, Not sure what yet)
-3G/4G card from my Charge
I will root and theme etc, that's a given!
I know this is a giant wall of text, I tried to break it up a bit, but thanks for reading and I hope I get some good feedback and helpful tips.
I do something similar but not on the tab. I have an unlocked galaxy nexus gsm phone, no contract needed. I use tmobile prepaid, $30 per month for 5gb, at 4g (hspa) speed, then unlimited throttled. But it comes with only 100 minutes per month, so must be supplemented with calls over data. I have used grooveip and talkatone. The free talkatone app seemed to be about the same quality as grooveip. The monthly $2 high quality talkatone may be a little better. The quality of Skype is much much better than both, and since most everyone I talk to have Skype I just use that for free. But if you get a google voice number, you can use grooveip or talkatone as a phone too. Google voice will also work for sms. I only use that app, never the phone messenger app, I like it so much. No mms though. Also keep in mind data speeds matter. With 4g speeds you are ok. May have trouble in a moving car, I'm not a big talker so I haven't really noticed. At 3g speeds it will probably still work but quality will be worse. No way to use it if you drop to edge. So this is what I do on the phone. If I need data on the tab, I turn on the wifi widget in the nexus phone and voila I have data on my wifi tab. No expensive tablet/contract, no expensive monthly bills, $30/ month gets me what I need. You do have to pay a premium to escape the carrier contract, but think how fast you make back the extra cost of the phone. The galaxy nexus with jelly bean is only $350 in the google play store, not a bad deal at all.
Thanks a ton Kisrita, I bought my GT10.1v for $350, which seemed like a pretty good deal. And TMobile in our area does not have 4g, and what little service they have, sucks. And that helps me out a lot, I'd like to use skype a lot, but the hassle of this day and age at least for my generation, is not a lot of people USE the Skype on their phone. They have it, but they don't have it open to be "online" everyone just texts via messenger, so in theory, to communicate, I also have to be on a "Messenger" but knowing that GV can work for SMS is a good thing.
Sorry, nevermind, didn't read carefully enough.
All is good. Thanks for the free bump atleast!
Well, My tablet gets here today. Still looking for some answers!
I don't know if you knew this, but the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (GT-P51xx) works as a phone and for SMS.
www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxytab2/10.1/mobile/index.html?type=find
However, if you must go with the 10.1v, you have the option of doing the SMS mod on it and using Whatsapp as a primary messenger. It's fairly popular and a lot of people have it. For phone calls, I believe work is on to enable phone calls, and it may be possible some time in the very near future. Until then, you could always use Skype with a Skype paid number for incoming and outgoing calls through 3G/4G. Google Voice also has some interesting similar options.
Sent from my GT-P5100 using xda premium
No SIM card?
I'm not sure if this applies. Have 10.1, but it has no visible SIM or SDCard setup. Would like to see if some kinda way to run my T Mobile service through it. Is this possible if I can't put in a sim card?
I have a SGP621, been reading the posts on here but none seem to answer some of the questions I have. I do appologize if seems like some of this info I could just get myself by visiting the stores, unfortunately I have very bad experiences with AT&T sales reps, I always seem to have halfwits who know less about the phones and plans their selling then I do. plus I work almost every day, I dont have the time wait half an hour between each question so the the reps can all play "pass the question" in the hopes that the person to their left knows the answer. its irritating, frustrating, and your own personal experiences would give me a much better picture.
Also, it seems I'm one of the few who fall in the opposite category of what seems to be everyone else who bought the SGP621, I actually don't want to use it as a phone at all, I'm just tired of tethering. Ideally, I'd be happiest with a data only plan, even better if doing so could save me some cash.
AT&T questions:
Can I just get a data plan/add it as a tablet?
As a phone...would/could it be the same number as my normal phone? 2 separate numbers?
Jgonzo432 said:
Yeah, it's the same on the Z3TC. I didn't accept the download because I don't want my settings changed so I can't confirm if it has RedPocket , H2O and ATT etc...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
whats this about? is this necessary? what does it change?
How much is it to add to an existing family plan?
how much of a data usage increase do you see with this on your plan?
T-Mobile questions:
Roughly how much for the data only plan?
is it worth it considering I already have a plan with AT&T?
That's exactly what I have with tmobile... Data only... Twenty bucks a month for 1gb, and that does include the free music streaming service
Well incase anyone was wondering, I did actually have some time today. since I already have a mobile share plan with AT&T adding my tablet was pretty cheap.
Its $10 for a tablet (data only), $15 for a phone (phone+data)
When they stuck a sim card in my tablet, AT&T gets confused, classifying it as 2 different things on 2 different levels and thus they could not simply add it. Instead they had to use the serial from one of the instore display devices, so they gave me the option to classify it as a tablet or phone. Even though I was planning to go tablet, 5 dollar diff? i went phone. seems to be working fine so far.
Consider the $15/mo tablet data plan thru Harbor Mobile ($15 for 5GBs). They are simply reselling a T-Mo business line I believe and could prob go under and leave you hanging at any moment...but if you don't have a phone number to lose, who cares.