Cell Phones: Data Usage Verizon and others

Good for you. We used Vetizon’s Intl plan in London last year and had several penalties,$75 worth. This year for Italy we have it again and it gives double the data from last year. Cost is higher though. It is on my husband’s iphone and I will get a SIM card for mine to make local calls.
I will report back with our experience.

"A key issue is texting. Texts to our US number do not come through because the phone was on the GB number. Fortunately for us, all of our family have iPhones, and iMessage texts do come through."

Yes, this is a great point. If you are sending texts from one iPhone to another, they will work over Wi-Fi. If both parties are not on iPhones, texts will not go over Wi-Fi, but need a cellular connection, and have to be sent to the phone number of the SIM currently in the phone (so, in your case, a UK SIM).

I use the Verizon $10 a day plan. Most places seem to have Wi-Fi access and in a true emergency, I know that I can make a phone call or access data outside of Wi-Fi and pay the $10. I’ve done this several times and I’ve never needed to use it, but I can access it if needed.

Dual SIM phones are the most convenient in this situation, but I understand iPhones lack this function, although there are third party solutions.

@Kristen. I've heard of the $10/day plan. Could you verify that it cost nothing unless you actually use it on any particular day? And once you use it in one day, you may as well use it a lot? Does it include any phone calls and internet searches? I'm pretty sure that on my current Verizon plan, if I send or receive texts while I'm in Europe, there is no charge, or just 50 cents a piece??

Yes, if you use it once, you might as well get the full 24 hours that you’ll be charged. I used it once to text when it was urgent and no WiFi around. I’m not 100% sure that it includes phone calls, mine was just texts and use of the Internet. Maybe someone else knows? I used to buy the flat fee Verizon plan- I think international is $40 for a month or something like that. But it didn’t really allow for a lot of data use and since my hotels always have WiFi and most times I can duck into a coffee shop or something if I need to and access free WiFi, this $10 a day plan has been sufficient for my last few overseas trips. It ends up to be a better deal for me.

Sprint somewhat recently changed its international roaming. No charge for incoming our outgoing texts, free 2G data (should work for most things), and twenty cents per minute calls. Much better than what it used to be. Since I seldom need to call anybody while on vacation, the changes work out great for me.

Wow, 0.3GB (300MB) is extremely low usage for a whole month (10MB per day???). In fact, I question whether that is accurate. I don't see how you could use Google Maps much off WiFi and use only 10MB per day, unless you are using it for driving and using "offline" maps. (Doesn't sound like it.) Or unless you simply didn't use the phone many days off of WiFi. How did you determine this usage? Are you sure the phone didn't split months in estimating the usage?

When I travel, I use about 100 to 120MB per DAY. I do use WiFi when it is available, but I am using Google Maps constantly. I do check email and Facebook but don't stream videos. And I use hotspot to tether my laptop on trains, etc. when there is no WiFi. I don't consider 120MB per day very much.

I have no issues texting when I travel, because I use Google Voice for texting even at home, and for texting, that works the same anywhere, whether I have a SIM in the phone or not.

I brought an old iPhone and my new iPhone with me on our last trip. I paid £10 for a sim card and put that on the old iPhone and used that as a hot spot for my new iPhone! Of course, I didn’t figure that out until I had 2 days left on my trip. Before that, I used wifi and whats app to communicate with folks back home on my new iPhone and used the old iPhone with the sim card for data and phone calls to local areas as needed.

I have used the $10/day plan on Verizon on previous trips and it is indeed good for 24 hrs for unlimited calls, text and data but it does add up. I’ve also rented a mobile wifi device on another trip which cost me a ton of money with the “hidden” charges. I found the solution above to be the most cost effective so keep those old iPhones around, folks!

Yeah, I have some spare phones, too, but I'm not sure why I'd need an old phone to be a hotspot for my new one, unless I truly needed to phones.

Now, I do have an old Moto E2 that's the international version with all the LTE bands used in Europe. My newer US Moto E4 has only one LTE band (7), so that is one case where my old Moto E2 could be useful as a hotspot, I guess. But I have found that even 3G data networks are usually fast enough for me.

I've heard of the $10/day plan. Could you verify that it cost nothing unless you actually use it on any particular day? And once you use it in one day, you may as well use it a lot? Does it include any phone calls and internet searches?

If you are in a country which offers the Verizon $10/day plan, it costs NOTHING unless you actually use it. Now this can be tricky, b/c if you switch your phone off of airplane mode, then it may try to find a connection. Stay on airplane mode and use WiFi - no charge.

If you do want to use your phone overseas and have enabled the Verizon Travel Pass on your phone, then once you land in another country which is in the $10/day list, you'll receive a text from Verizon telling you that the 24 hours has started. During that 24 hours, you can use your phone JUST LIKE YOU DO AT HOME. If your plan at home has unlimited texts, than so does your plan abroad. If your plan at home has unlimited calls, than so does your plan outside the US. If your plan at home features data usage in the package, you have the same data usage (and limitations) in the foreign country.

About an hour before the 24-hour period ends, you will receive another text from Verizon telling you that your 24-hour period is about to end. You can switch to airplane mode/WiFi at this point and not incur any more charges until you switch your phone off of airplane mode. But once it's switched off airplane mode and connects to the local carrier, you'll be looking at another 24-hour period.

@aquamarinesteph, great explanation, thank you

OP replying to Andrew: Yes, I was obviously surprised at using only 0.3 GB. That number came from EE's web site for my plan. At the end it showed my 5 GB plan with 4.7 GB remaining. When planning this, I could never reconcile some posters who said they used only minimal data on Google Maps and others like you who use 100 MB per day. I wish I had looked at Cellular Data on my phone before switching SIM cards back to Verizon but I didn't think of it. As I noted, we used G Maps every day although sometimes minimally. Our main data usage was at the apartment on WIFI.

Personally, the easy way is to install a VOIP app on the cell phone that uses Wi-Fi to communicate and also have Verizon's TravelPass as a back up. I just returned from a 21 day trip to three countries, one of which was England. Wi-Fi is prevalent in most public places.

I had to use the TravelPass once to call the airline to fix a problem with my reservation.

There are a number of VOIP packages to include WhatsApp, Apple’s Facetime, and Facebook Messenger among others.

I personally use WhatsApp. It's free text, phone calling, and video calling with outstanding audio quality. Works for both Android and Iphones but the recipient of the text/call must have it downloaded on their phone as well.

I too use WhatsApp.

It’s how the esteemed Nigel and I keep in touch.

Another Forum poster turned me on to the app when it first became available.

I’ve used when traveling in Turkey, the U.K., and in Cuba where WiFi is spotty.

Friends who live in Tokyo use it to contact me. Here in the States I stay in touch with friends in Kentucky, D.C. Vancouver and Florida by using it.

As noted it’s free and transmission quality is excellent.

Very practical travel tool.