Hi OzBargainers,
I'll be travelling to the US in May, and would love to know if there's a consensus on the best overseas sim cards currently available. I was originally going to go with Arieli Mobile - https://www.arielimobile.com/ however I see that they do not allow Hotspot/tethering.
Something >4gb with access to LTE would be ideal.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I used this about 4 years ago.
https://www.usaprepaidsimcard.com.au/sim-cards-and-plans/
Was handy because I had the SIM before I left, was able to put in in my phone during the flight and used it when I landed to find our transfer.
I bought USA SIM card from https://www.simcorner.com/shop in Jan this year.
Unlimited calls and receive calls in USA … free SMS to international. Receive call from Australia for free, 4Gb.
I had the SIM and number before I left, they activated the SIM for me.
It all depends how long you'll be there for and what you'll mostly be doing. Are you doing any travel within the US as well, domestically flying?
I used a T-Mobile SIM for about a months worth of usage and it sorted me out well. It cost me maybe US$60 and I think I got 10GB (inc tethering). I only needed data tbh. I mostly chose this Carrier because I was doing a lot of domestic flying and the airline I used had an hour free Wi-Fi for T-Mobile users per flight (so even when I was doing one route, but had a stop over, both legs of the journey had the free hour). The better part about that was that it only required you enter your phone number for verification - I could use other peoples phone numbers who were using T-Mobile and it'd authorise it and on the longer flights I'd end up getting two or three hours worth!
Coverage was also the best, from what I'd heard. You may experience differently
I've used T-Mobile a few times always bought before departing Aus, from Travel Sims Direct on line as they are not on OzB any longer. The last one which I start using for 30 days at start of May cost about AUD78 delivered and is in the post (I hope).
I used AT&T gophone last year. I bought a starter SIM at a Walmart for $10 and a 1 month unlimited call/data pack for USD$45. I found it a bit pricey, but it was handy for me to be able to add credit to the same phone number the next time I was in the USA two months later (this had to happen within 3 months).
Was it pretty straightforward to activate? I was in the US last year and got a prepaid SIM from the AT&T store and it took forever, we had to wait for someone to set us up with an account and put all our details into the system. There was a Walmart just down the street but we weren't sure if we'd have to go through the same process there.
Relatively easy. I think the barcode didn't work and it took Walmart over 30 minutes to refund the purchase and gibe me a new starter kit. Also the instructions to get started weren't very clear, but a guy inside Walmart, in the electrical section, knew what to do and got us going. The most frustrating this was data speed was mega slow. I had to call the help line 2-3 times and go through a bunch of problem-checking until they got the settings right, then it worked fine.
Thanks, sounds like it took you just as long as us haha. I'll probably try the Walmart option next time though.
@HighRiseGoat: If you are travelling to multiple countries over multiple time periods, the TRAVELSIM concept might make sense, but I haven't really looked into it too much.
We got a T-Mobile sim locally after we arrived (in the city). They've got good coverage, especially if you're not going bush bashing.
Bit off topic, but we also got ripped off taking a traditional cab from LAX. Do yourself a favour and either get a sim before you leave Aus, or use roaming on the first day to get an Uber from Airport. I think it was 70 USD vs 40ish on Uber.
There's free wifi in Lax anyway, but Uber's aren't allowed to do pickups in LAX anyway. You need to walk to near In and Out Burger.
Old post, but just FYI this is no longer true, UBER does pick up in LAX. https://www.uber.com/en-AU/airports/lax/
Make sure the network is GSM http://willmyphonework.net/ and root your phone if you can because you can bypass the tether bans.