AT&T Offering Day Pass For International Travelers (cnet.com)

Starting Friday, AT&T customers who travel abroad can sign up for a new International Day Pass plan. Instead of paying by the minute, message or megabyte, the plan lets you pay a $10-a-day flat free so you can talk and text "all you want" and also access your data plan as though you're in the states. From a report: AT&T said the new plan is available for customers traveling to more than 100 countries listed here. To use the new plan, customers just need to add it once and it will automatically kick in each time they travel to a supported country, until it's removed.

Comments

Overpriced

[EndlessNameless]

The only thing more overpriced than this plan is their regular international rates.

ATT is garbage. Fortunately for them, their largest competitor is also garbage so they stay in business.

Re:Overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

> regular international rates

Which are just ridiculous. I live in Seattle, and when I go to Canada I get charged $19.97 per MByte by AT&T. The last trip I made the mistake of downloading a 10 MB PDF email attachment and was charged about $200 for it.

Re:Overpriced

[swb]

Super overpriced. I got 30 days of unlimited talk/text and 10 gb of data for less than 20 GBP from ASDA mobile when I was in the UK.

The only drawback I saw was that I didn't get LTE speeds, "only" 4G. I wasn't sure if that was a radio limitation of my US-bought iPhone 6 plus or a limitation of the plan. It also didn't allow for tethering.

The practical drawbacks of that were nil for me, speeds were just fine for maps, email, web and every other smartphone thing I wanted to do and the hotel had free and quite good wifi.

And using a local SIM is hardly novel, either, you about trip over people trying to sell SIM cards in the arrival area of the airport.

Re:Overpriced

[r1348]

That's quite overpriced, but I suppose it depends on where in Europe you travel. Here in Italy I pay 10€/mo for 6GB LTE, 600 minutes and 600 SMS's (which I never ever come close to finish).

Re: Overpriced

[muffen]

He was getting prepaid cards, where there tends to be an extra fee for the card itself, can't compare that to a subscription.

In general though, I find connectivity in the US to be expensive. I pay $55 for uncapped 1000/1000mbit fiber to my home, and about the same for my mobile connection, which has a 40GB data limit, and free calls and text,and I can use it in 47 countries right now without any additional charge, the US included.

competition

[magarity]

Ain't competition great - T-Mobile has been including this in for no extra per day cost for a while now.

Re:competition

[whoever57]

To be accurate, T-Mobile doesn't include calls in their plan, but there are options: 1. Connect to a WiFi hotspot and use T-Mobile's VOIP capability ("WiFi calling"), 2. Use any other VOIP app (WhatApp, Skype, Vonage Extensions, etc.) to call using only data.

Re:competition

[GabeGhearing]

Nope it's actually free in Canada with T-Mobile ONE (the normal package)

• - Canada/Mexico roaming is treated the same as US, so Calls/Data/Text are unlimited.
• - Data/Texting is free world-wide.

https://www.t-mobile.com/optio...

I've used it in Italy, France, Ireland, and China. Works pretty well, but official tethering is a crapshoot depending on what network you are roaming on (China/Italy worked, in Ireland/France couldn't get official tethering to work).

Editors!!

[Desler]

A flat free? But what if I want a flat expensive?

Terrible deal

[zerostyle]

How is this a deal? Using a foreign SIM card, you can usually spend $30 for a MONTH of data. Some sample prices I've paid: (1) Vietnam - $6 for a SIM card for 3gb fast speed then unlimited slow speed for a month (2) Colombia - $13 for a SIM card for 3gb for a month or so (3) Australia - $30 for 9gb (5gb+1gb extra per weekends) for a month Even the most expensive of these only average $1/day, nowhere near $10/day.

Re:Terrible deal

[captaindomon]

I would absolutely rather pay the $2 for Verizon roaming and use my same SIM card, than try to communicate that people in the US that need me need to dial some Cambodian phone number long distance for them, or that if they text me I have a non-US standard phone number they have to enter to send a text, etc.

Re: Countdown

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, how about "they are using arbitrarily carrier-locked phones to fuck you into using their price-gouging international rates instead of just allowing you to get a prepaid SIM in whatever country you visit"

Local simcard

[jolyonr]

And this is why people who travel a lot use local simcards and do all their communication on WhatsApp these days.,

Last time I needed a simcard when in a foreign country it cost me $5, gave me 1GB of data and lasted two weeks.

Re: Local simcard

[corychristison]

I'm Canadian. The last time I was in the US I bought a prepaid SIM from Roam Mobility.

Cost $5 (CAD) per day while in the US. You preload it by setting which days you expect to be in the US, and prepay for it prior to your trip.

Each day added 1GB of data to the "pool" of usable Data while traveling + unlimited calling and sms/mms.

I was in the US for 6 days, so it cost me $30 and gave me 6GB of Data. The area I was in had LTE, so it was actually quite useful.

It's not the cheapest, but one of the better deals available without too much hassle. My carrier offers the same thing as AT&T, but for Canadians travelling to the US. Cost is also $10/day. Activate it by sending a text message to a special number.

I suspect they prey on people who don't buy unlocked devices, or know how to unlock their devices, essentially forcing their clients to have to pay those prices.

its been said.

[nimbius]

T-Mobile already offers this. once you land in a foreign country you get a courtesy text reminding you that your data plan still works without any surcharge or tariff. Youre also reminded that your text messages remain free, and your voice rate is now very competitively priced.

smh. amazing ATT considers this worth advertising at all.