Verizon or T-Mobile: who has better coverage in UK, France, Italy & Greece?

If you have the T-Mobile Simple Choice plan, then it is a no-brainer. Your T-Mobile plan will get you free text, free data (although slow 2g) and 20 cent a minute calls in these 4 countries. If you don't have the simple choice plan, you will need to compare rates and options.

Thanks, Laura. Do you happen to know if I can pay more to bump up my data to 4G?

When you arrive in each country, once your phone detects the network, you get a message from T-Mobile with an offer to increase data speed at a fee and a link to make the purchase. I never purchased anything extra. 2g worked fine for checking email and occasionally checking a website or using googlemaps. I generally used a wifi connection at the hotel for most things. The 2g was just a convenience when I wasn't near wifi.

T-Mobile has removed the "2G only" notations from their marketing that was present when they first introduced international roaming. And I've heard a lot of people reporting they routinely get 3G with their T-Mobile phones (the cheap Android I used in Croatia in May did not have the 3G bands to work in Europe, so it was still only 2G for me, even though it is 3G in the US). So I think the 2G restriction for T-Mobile roaming may be gone.

I'm in total agreement with Laura. I have traveled to several countries (including where you're heading) with T-Mobile Simple Choice and my iPhone 5s. I didn't purchased the upgrade, either. The 3G worked just fine when I needed it and I also used wifi connections at my hotels and B&Bs. You might check with T-Mobile for the upgrade charges might be.

I see T-Mobile still offers a "high speed data pass" for sale when you roam in Europe, though, so you might have that option as well, if you get to Europe and find the data on your T-Mobile phone too slow. I think the "welcome!" text you get from T-Mobile when you begin roaming in each new country includes a link to be able to buy the data pass.

I had 3G with my T-Mobile coverage recently on Estonia, Finland, Russia and northern Germany. Last year, I had 3G in Ireland, France, Austria, Italy and Germany. The only place where it was spotty was in the Loire Valley. I used it extensively for directions (we're a bit challenged in that area), email, etc.

Wow! Thank you all for sharing your experiences. It sure seems like, hands down, we should keep our TMobile phone as is and use the current Verizon phone as the one we switch out the SIM card with. This is a huge help. (Anyone with 90+ year old parents will understand our desire to have a phone we can be easily reached on with no international dialing.)

Thanks, again. Will be posting an e-mail question soon. Can you tell this is the day I sort out our tech choices? :-)

Hi all,
Question about switching out a SIM card. I have a Verizon plan and an iPhone6. I want maps and wikipedia type info in the car, on the trip in Italy. According to my local office, Verizon's International plan gives me text and phone calls (at an additional fee) but no data...too costly. I talked with T-Mobile and can get a data plan at reasonable cost. They said they can give me their SIM card and I could switch it with my current V SIM card and use my existing phone while in Europe and have data. Not being real savvy in this area, what happens if I switch SIM cards? any ramifications when I switch back to Verizon's SIM card after a month with the T-mobile SIM card? Does anything happen to my V account while the SIM sits at home on my desk?
Thanks for any info,
T6flyer

Hi T6flyer,

When you switch SIM cards you'll just have a new number at that point. Everything else will stay the same. Nothing will happen to your Verizon account. It will switch back just fine when you put your Verizon SIM card back in at the end of the month.

That being said, you will get a bunch of questions about iMessage if you use it to "add number to iMessage" and may even get security warning emails from Apple, but this is all normal.

If at any point on your travels you get a "No Service" message, just turn the phone completely off by holding the sleep button until the red slider appears and slide it. Once the phone totally turns off, about a minute usually, press and hold the sleep button again until you see the Apple logo. This fixes many issues with iPhones!

Good luck,
Erik