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4G SIM card for tourist in the US?
Going to the US for my first time tomorrow. Been around in the world, but never in the US. My phone company is charging me almost $1 per MB in the US. So...is it posssible to buy a SIM card with 4G like on the Airport (Fort lauderdale/Florida) or someplace else like in many other countries? And if yes...what should I go for? Most likely going to use a couple of GB at least if I get a SIM card.
Comments
Typically we don't have wireless sellers inside of airports. Though you shouldn't have any trouble finding a store that carries them as most convenience stores will have them. Plus there's a Walmart every two goddamn miles -- welcome to America.
Should be fine picking up an AT&T prepaid or straight talk sim. Probably will cost you around 10 bucks for the sim card and an additional 40 or so for 5ish gbs of data for the month.
Just have to visit a Wallmart one of the days...just for the fun of it.
T-Mobile has SIM kits at Walmart and some other stores that is $30 for unlimited data and text with 100 minutes for talk. If you just need data it's probably the best deal for traveling here, some of the others only give like 1GB of data for the sim kits in stores.
If you want the true Walmart experience, then go around 1-3am. You'll run into some interesting walks of life.
$1/mb? My carrier charges $6/mb and I'm less than 200km away from the damn place. Booo!
On that note, you can try using Roam Mobility.
@MasonR What I like about the US is that most Walmart stores are open 24 hours a day
My area barely has 1 Walmart open 24 hours a day. The majority close at 11PM-12AM.
T-Mobile pricing is better than AT&T for prepaid SIM cards
I was at JFK airport recently. They had a vending machine with sin cards and pre paid cards.. I think art (under some other brand). You may see in fl too
If you can find one that's still open- Sears and K-Mart also have some rather low-rent phones for a temporary. When some buddies came from Sweden, they were astounded by a Verizon phone that cost them $40. Ended up taking it home and finding out it didn't work there.
For some reason, the US has other frequencies that no one else uses. For example, my iPhone 6 supports LTE band 7 (works in the UK, Canada, most of Europe, Russia, Japan).
On that note, it was some discount phone, which probably only supported CDMA :P
Did someone say FAHRENHEIT
I mean, miles?
I think it was the ill-fated 1900 for GSM because it did claim to be dual-banded. Android 4. Wasn't good, but for 2015 wasn't complete trash, either.
Usually, AT&T and T-Mobile (and their reseller) only uses world-compatible LTE frequencies in metropolitan areas. They usually switch to US-ONLY frequencies in the suburbs.
For example, I was getting 5-bars and good LTE in downtown San Francisco. However, as soon as I reached South San Francisco, I was getting crappy coverage in LTE frequencies but OK when I switched back to GSM/Edge. I experienced the same behavior in Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta.
Go with the reseller SIMs. They usually have better packages than the main GSM carriers for tourist. Activation of AT&T or T-Mobile SIMs took a lot longer...several hours instead of 10s of minutes.
Usually whenever I head into the US, my phone roams on T-Mobile usually, but falls back to AT&T when there's no service. The signals, I find a bit funny, the phone starts at 5 bars, than drops slowly and slowly to like two or one and than shoots back to 5, maybe when it switches cell towers? But it still works with phones not from the US (using a Iphone 6s from Canada), even in suburbs for me (well it only dropped once for like a few minutes). I guess it really just depends on the area. Can't say anything about the service itself however, I mean I just don't use the phone because roaming charging are really expensive... (aren't you people lucky, T-Mobile doesn't even charge you for roaming at all)
However when I did a network search in some random place, it seems that four carriers showed up, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon. However, not sure if I tried to connect to the network if it'll let me in.
I am on roaming instead of buying a local SIM card (I had no need for calling) so it may be a different experience for you...
Why do they even use random frequencies anyway? Cheap or something? Trying to make sure people have a hard time roaming on their networks? But I mean they do still use CDMA because they're trying too hard on saving money...
AT&T and T-Mobile's originated using GSM-based technology. Sprint and Verizon originated using CDMA-based tech. They used frequencies different from the rest of the world because North America already allocated those frequencies for non-licensed devices (like residential cordless telephones). Higher frequency LTE channels were also being used by terrestrial television stations.
Since your Canadian iPhone 6s sees all 4 US carriers, I assume it's the 6s which supports both CDMA and GSM based technologies AND the wide quantity of LTE bands.
Getting back to @myhken...
Check with your phone and see which LTE bands it supports. Then, goto:
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Cheat-sheet-which-4G-LTE-bands-do-AT-T-Verizon-T-Mobile-and-Sprint-use-in-the-USA_id77933
To see which carriers will best support your phone's LTE bands. Then, goto the AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, & Verizon coverage maps to see which carrier is the best for your area of Florida you will visit. After finding the best major carrier, look for resellers (MVNOs) of that major carrier.
Have fun and bring a separate GPS unit if you can. My TomTom provided much better directions than Waze/Google Maps.
See ya...
d.c.
I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge that seems like it supports every band out there...
Also taking with me my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ that most likely is the phone I'm going to use with the US SIM card.
Thank you for all the replies. But then I know that there is no issues getting a prepaid SIM with some GB of data, but that I most likely have to go to a store, like Wallmart or a mall or something to get it.
The nearest Wallmart from my hotel is a Wallmart Supercenter...sound like a big store?
That means they've also got (a piss-poor selection of) groceries.
@imchandave Nah, my iPhone supports LTE in the USA. Albeit not the fastest in the world, nor the cheapest, the data connection works.
At&t with mexican plan. $5 usd unlimited calls, 500 mb í think, and social networks (whatsapp, Twitter, facebook) unlimited.
No such thing as tourist here. Once you enter we do not let you leave.
On three we get 12gb free roaming in USA
But how to get a mexican plan in Florida?
Doesn't this require the sim to be activated in the UK?
I can send you a sim card
I'm currently using three feel at home, and routing is quite bad. All the traffic goes through UK. So if you are traveling quite far like to the us latency is bad.
@mykhen
Disney is closed... are you going there to meet Irma ?
OP, be sure to brush up on the One True System of Units if you grew up metrics-damaged.
BTW, where are you going in the US?
BTW, where are you going in the US?
I saw that @Aidan but didn't know if that was just the airport he was flying into or if he's just going to hang out in Florida.