I had long raved about T-Mobile’s free international roaming plan – which offers unlimited texting and “data at up to 2G speeds in 210+ countries”. This is a great perk if you travel abroad and don’t feel like dealing with SIM cards. The per minute calling rate is now set at $.25 USD/min.
Is T-Mobile Throttling Data?
When free international data roaming was introduced with T-Mobile, I was often able to pick up better than 2G speed. However, the data speed is throttled to 2G these days. This is where T-Mobile shines with their “$5” international add-on pass. The on-demand pass gives you 512MB of Internet and unlimited calling in 210+ countries in a 24-hour period.
First, this is a great option if you plan to make a lot of calls. You’d come up ahead of the plan rate if you to talk on the phone for more than 20 minutes in a 24-hour period. I generally have a greater need for data. Technically, you don’t even need the voice portion of the plan once you have data. You can make calls using VOIP apps like “WhatsApp”.
Once your data usage hits the 80% mark, you’d typically get a alert message. When the data allotment is used up, your data speed is reverted back to 2G. You’d still get to keep the unlimited calling for the remainder of the pass.
A Couple of Quick Tips
- Buying Your Pass: Login to your account on the T-Mobile app. Under the add-on section, you can select the International Pass. You can choose activate your pass immediately. You can also schedule for a specific date.
- Reboot your device: Although not necessary, I usually just do a reboot just to make sure that anything I do after is under the new plan.
- Understand the limit: You can buy 2 international passes in a 24-hour period. If you use up all the data allotment and need to buy a new one, you can buy another pass after you used up the first one.
- Ignore confusing messages: If you buy new pass, you can sometimes get an order confirmation text, followed immediately by an equally conflicting message that you have removed your international pass, but that you would be still billed for the pass. What does that even mean? It turned out that the message is confirming that you’re removing your not-yet-expired international pass with a new one.
Bottom Line
The throttling of data to 2G speed makes web surfing frustratingly slow, rendering the “free data roaming” benefit mostly ineffective. The free texting is still good benefit. I’ve also purchased the $5 international pass more than a handful of times in various countries. It works and it works well — just know that the cost can add up pretty quickly.
Have you used T-Mobile’s international pass? Did you think it was worth it or did you end up using other options?
So I’m traveling for 3 days so the 24 hr pass x 3 day for $5×3 or $15 bucks seems appropriate. Do I need to reactivate/repurchase a 24 hr pass each day or will it renew automatically until I return home and remove it?
I used it again recently abroad in UK. You would get multiple text messages as you get closer to the 24 hours pass expiration / low usage. It’s a day pass, expiring about 24 hours from activation so activate at a time when it works for you. It doesn’t automatically renew. You can buy another pass when you run out of a pass or run out of GB. Have fun!
The unlimited calling is within whatever country you’re in or just to the USA?
Great question. This would be unlimited calling at the 210+ “Simple global” countries: https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global.
(Much simpler than back in the day when I had an international SIM and had to check the individual rates for each country)
Hope this helps!
I’ve used it and it’s enough to make want to switch back to Verizon. It’s horrible to use. The concept is fantastic and I love T-Mobile. But actually getting this to work is so difficult. It’s beyond difficult to get it attached to the account. It’s not seamless. At all. Not even remotely. You must navigate on the phone using very VERY slow data and even their app tends to time out which makes getting the data pass almost impossible, if not actually impossible to obtain.
I applaud T-Mobile for doing this, but they really need to make it more useful. In the current state, it’s nearly impossible to use and extremely frustrating. Although higher in cost, Verizon and AT&T work seamlessly. Turn the phone on and it works. Immediately. T-Mobile needs to be step it up. They are very close, but not quite there yet and the frustration around trying to use it is enough to drive you bonkers.
Great point – thanks for pointing it out. I ran into that problem too. Getting to the add-on page to “buy” the pass “times out”, because of how slow 2G is (which was frustrating). You could always ‘schedule’ the access, but I like to buy it on-demand. I usually end up buying the international pass only when I’m at the hotel or when I have WIFI access.