Tmobile in europe??

I’ve used TMobile on my last 5 trips and it has been perfectly adequate for my needs of making phone calls, looking up websites, and checking googlemaps, etc.

I'd take those reviews with a grain of salt - because they are coming from people with a variety of phones, who may not understand how they are connecting and why their speed be slow.

A few things to consider:

1. Europe uses different mobile radio frequencies than we use in North America. US phones are designed first and foremost to work best in the US. Your phone MAY have some or all of the frequencies used in Europe. It varies by make and model of phone. In general, the more expensive (and new) your phone, the more likely it is to have more or all of the European frequencies to connect to the fastest mobile networks in Europe. Cheaper or older phones may have fewer overseas frequencies.. So when you see reviews of T-Mobile overseas and speed...who KNOWs what kind of phone they are using? They might have a phone that connects only at the slowest 2G "edge" frequencies in Europe but work as a fast LTE phone at home and say, "Wow, T-Mobile is slow in Europe!" But it's due to their phone, not T-Mobile.

2. T-Mobile (in my experience, using my phone in Europe with it on several trips) will always connect to the fastest network available...if your phone (as above) has the right frequencies built in to receive them. In 2015, I had a cheap phone that could connect only at 2G (but 3G at home). The next year, I bought a European phone that connected to LTE networks almost everywhere - MUCH faster than my 2015 experience!

   1. T-Mobile (like Sprint) offers free unlimited "2G" roaming data - which has nothing to do with the type of network (LTE, 3G, 2G) it connects to. Instead, they "throttle" your data to slow it down in some cases (like when you try to stream a video, which sucks up a lot of bandwidth). In most cases (2016) I never noticed a slowdown, unless I tried streaming a video or uploading a lot of stuff at once. For everything else, the speed was fine.
   2. T-Mobile US doesn't really exist in Europe - instead, they have roaming partners there. OK - technically, T-Mobile US is (mostly) owned by a big Germany company who operates other subsidiaries in European countries called "T-Mobile" - but they are technically roaming partners with T-Mobile US. In other words, there is no "T-Mobile network" in Europe. Instead, they have roaming partners in each country - sometimes another T-Mobile subsidiary, sometimes Vodafone, sometimes someone else. What matters is how good the network of their roaming partner in that country is.

In some countries, they seem to have more than one roaming partner. In Lithuania, I was on a 3G network much of the time...and then I moved to a different Lithuanian city and suddenly lost that one but was able to connect to some other company's 4GLTE network. You can, in fact, try to "register" your phone on different cellular networks manually if you connect to one that seems too slow. Sometimes the phone connects to the first network it finds - and maybe you soon move into range of a much better (LTE) network. You may have to search cellular networks and ask it to connect to a different one. (Go ahead and try - maybe that network is one of T-Mobile's partners; if not, it just won't connect.)

Anyway - tell us what make/model phone you have if you are curious about whether it has fast frequencies used in Europe. If it's a really good/expensive phone, chances are it will have all the necessary frequencies, and you will be thrilled with T-Mobile in Europe, in my experience.

(No idea why the numbering above is messed up, LOL!)

We'll be on a Rhine river cruise in May. Arriving in Basel, staying 3 days in Amsterdam at the end. We, too, have an unlimited data and text plan with T Mobile. I went to a walk-in store last month with the same question. All three staff told me "no worries", don't need to change plans or a sim card. But, I think they said that data is free, AND phone calls will be $.20/minute, maybe just to/from the USA? I'm going back this week for clarification. Also, I anticipate slower data downloads.

On our last trip to the UK a few years ago, we had Verizon, but signed up for a local plan, and got a sim card. Coverage was lousy; we often had to walk out to the road to get decent signal. Bought phone cards at convenience store to use in pay phones; they didn't work.

Like buying airline tickets, you often get a different answer each time you ask the question. If there is a walk-in T Mobile near you, give them a shot.

Good luck, have fun, travel safe.

T-Mobile worked well for us in London, Paris, Italy, Belgium, and The Netherlands. The resort we stayed at in Scotland had no cellular connection to speak of. If you went down the road a few miles there was a cell tower in the middle of field of sheep. If you stood there you got excellent reception.

The Vatican has excellent wifi. We made free phone calls using wifi from the middle of St. Peter's square. My mom said we said we sounded like we were local.

I was sure we were going to find some crazy extra fees when we got home but no. T-Mobile also worked well for us in Japan.

Jerry, with T-Mobile calls are 20 cents/minute either to the US or to non-US numbers. However, if your phone supports "WiFi Calling" and you are connected to WiFi, calls to US numbers are free. If you don't know much about WiFI calling see if your phone supports it. (If your phone doesn't support WiFi calling, install Google Hangouts plus - for Android - Hangouts Dialer, so you can make free calls to US numbers even to landlines - whether you are on WiFi or just using mobile data. I made several long calls home in 2016 with my T-Mobile phone with Hangouts, while not on WiFi - and I saved the 20 cents/minute because Hangouts is free.)

T-Mobile data is unlimited when roaming but throttled to "2G" speeds - so it might be slow in some cases but may not seem slow much of the time.

As I said above (regarding your previous experience with buying a SIM card), how well your phone works in Europe can depend on which frequencies it supports. Last year my European Moto E worked flawlessly all over Slovenia, Italy, and France with my Dutch Vodafone SIM. But that phone was optimized for European mobile frequencies. That same phone actually does work in the US somewhat but not well - won't connect to LTE networks here so 3G at most.

I spend about half a year in Europe. For the past two years I have used T- mobile. Free data (although not always the fastest, free texts and calls are 20 cents/minute.

No problems. I flew into Zurich yesterday. I turned my phone back on upon touchdown. I was fully connected and got my welcome to Switzerland text before we parked at the terminal.

I have taken two trips to Europe with my T-Mobile service - in 2015 and 2017. I have never had a problem with either making or receiving calls, to or from the United States, or within Europe. And no extra charges on the bills either.

I have T-Mobile and it has worked very well in Europe, but as mentioned above, you need to make sure your particular phone uses the bands used in Europe. My previous phone did not, and I had issues on the trips with that phone & T-Mobile.

T-mobile, being a German company, probably does pretty well in Europe.

I have used T-Mobile in Europe and have always been happy with it. My iPhone service is through ATT and paid by a third party. When I went to Europe and visited more than 1 country, I’d sign up for T-Mobile and then cancel service when I returned home. But times have changed and now a SIM purchased in one country works without roaming charges in all the countries you will be visiting. If you are not a current T-Mobile customer, consider buying a SIM card in Europe and you’ll have a European # (might be handy regarding reservations and Air B&B hosts contacting you). And most likely it would be less expensive than setting up service with T-Mobile. The last time I did it, the monthly fee was $50 + they charged me for the SIM card. My last two trips to Italy, I paid €30 for a local card which included the cost of the card.

Here’s a link on Amazon to a Three Mobile card that’s been recommended on this site.

Thanks so much for the responses. We have Samsung galaxy s7. So I am thinking we should be good. I used tmobile website to check coverage on our plan and our equipment and both were good. I was just getting nervous about the other comments I saw. However I see the point about maybe they didn't have a good phone.

I saw Andrew's post on another thread about Google hangouts and am intrigued so will look into that too. Although I really don't want people to be able to contact me ;)
Just want to have for emergencies and data for travel.

Thanks again!

defuscofamily, people can't reach you on Google Hangouts unless you also get a Google Voice number. If you stop after installing Hangouts and Hangouts Dialer, no one can reach you - it's outgoing calls only! If someone calls you on your number at 20 cents a minute, though, you can always tell them you'll call them right back on Hangouts, for free...

I would look into WiFi Calling, though, anyway, so you can use your regular number for free for calls home on WiFi. Some people won't answer calls from unknown contacts.

dfuscofamily, I think most Samsungs come two ways, CDMA or GSM. So you should check to see which kind you have. Or tell us the name of your U.S. carrier. GSM is needed for Europe.

Tim, I assume the OP is on T-Mobile given the thread title, so they shouldn't have to do anything to use their phone(s) in Europe. Still, pretty much every "CDMA smart phone" nowadays can roam on GSM-type networks, and most certainly the OP's Galaxy S7 can. (On a Verizon or Sprint phone, just enable roaming.) This is how Verizon is able to sell their international roaming plans and passes. In fact, technically LTE isn't GSM or CDMA anymore, anyway.

I wouldn't even consider the "Is your phone CDMA or GSM?" question anymore like we did ten years ago - it's pretty much an irrelevant question, unless you have an ancient flip phone. (If it has a SIM card at all, should be fine.) More important is, "Does your phone support the right frequencies for Europe or the part of the world to which you are visiting?"