Cellular data for five week stay in Europe -- any ideas?

[kathy884]

Hi, My son is going to be in Florence, Italy on for a college summer abroad program for five weeks or so. They just have class Mon. - Thurs. so can do a little weekend travel. He's also going to do a five night stay in London before going home too (staying in a youth hostel there).

Our cell service is Verison, and he has an IPhone 6. In the US we are on a 4 GB data plan. Version doesn't have any economical options for Europe, though. Anyway, our current plan phone wise is to have cellular data turned off except when he has wifi, and I did get (thru Verison) a low 100 minutes, 100 texts, 100 MB data plan (which is hardly anything) just in case of an emergency while he is over there. Data charges in Europe are absolutely outrageous thru them in the pay as you go mode.

It would be so nice though to have a decent amount of cellular data for traveling (google maps) etc. at a half way reasonable price. Has anyone gotten on a European plan -- sim card you could put in your phone I phone 6 from Verison or gotten another phone and done a plan for lets say two months. If so, what did you do and how much was that? If it's not all that expensive it would be a nice luxury to have abroad.

 

[craigkerstiens]

If I'm traveling to Europe for just a couple of days I'll just suffer through the pain of paying an outrageous amount for very little data through AT&T. If I'm there for a week or longer I bring an unlocked phone and then buy a SIM card once over there. It varies based on country which vendor I go through, but usually I can get a sim card with unlimited local texts, a few GB of data, and some minutes for under $100 that covers me for a full week.

If you're not able to unlock your iPhone 6 if you have an old one that can usually work great, or just find a very cheap on on eBay. There's no need to necessarily do a plan as the pay as you go over there can be much more reasonable and better quality over in Europe than in the US.

 

[HM]

My DD was in Germany/Spain for three weeks last summer. We didn't get a phone for her, just turned off the phone part so she couldn't make or recieve calls. We talked through iMessaging on the phone and computer. Even when she got sick and it would have been wonderful actually hear her talk to me, it still worked out for us. No expense other than the usual monthly payment. You can also Skype. Just a thought.

What I do want to tell you is a must-do, is getting your son some health insurance that covers his dates of travel overseas. We got ours through our AAA agent from Allianz and we did end up using it for the doctor visit. It included covering doctor visits (her's came to the house she was staying), hospitals, prescriptions, changing flights due to illness, emergency travel back to the states, etc. It cost us about $40.

 

[supersnoop]

Check out http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/italy.php

You'll need an unlocked phone. Sprint unlocked my iPhone for international usage, but I had to contact them and restore it through iTunes for the unlock to take affect.

Do no purchase a SIM at the airport. They're crazy overpriced; like €75 for 200KB (not MB!). Stop in a phone shop and pick up a prepaid SIM and have them add a data pack. I could only find a TIM store when I was there in October, and they were on the expensive side. I think I paid €50 for two SIMs with 5GB data on each. You can probably do a lot better than that if you can find a Vodaphone or Wind shop.

 

[minnierocks]

Does he have wifi available? Our daughter used the hotel's free wifi to iMessage, facebook message and used FaceTime to communicate with us...and it didn't cost any extra.

 

[Queeneileen]

I have T-Mobile family plan. I go to Ireland frequently and just have to add $10. international fee per phone and I can use my phone in Ireland. My kids come with me and I can call them on their phones. The call minutes are limited and texting is unlimited. Maybe you could get him his own service with T-Mobile. Get
him a no contract plan and cancel it when he returns.

 

[kathy884]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. We were originally thinking just wifi and Skype which would be no added cost, but posted as we'd really like cellular data too for him. Appreciate the other suggestions.

And FYI -- We do have health insurance through the university, plus I added some with Geoblue for the London stay I bought for $11. Our primary coverage thru United Health care -- ds is on that covers international and even has medical evac coverage too, but a pretty high deductible for that.

Wow Quenneileen. That T-Mobile deal sounds amazing and my mom has T-Mobile and an extra line and extra phones. Think we'll put him on that and have her add the international option. (We'll check it out to see if that would work for us.).

 

[maggiew]

Unlock your phone (or buy a cheap unlocked phone) and get a sim card while there.

My daughter did a semester abroad and this is what she did.

Maggie

 

[florep1]

Both of my daughters studies abroad for a semester last year. One was in Florence, Italy while the other one was in Bonn Germany. I got their iPhones unlocked so they could get a local simcard since they both traveled during spring break. The one in Germany got a Vodafone simcard. Can't remember what the other one did. Despite all that, they really didn't use their data plan as there is free wifi at school and most places. We mainly used Facebook and Viber to communicate.

 

[emilymad]

We have taken unlocked phones to Europe. We were mainly in London so just stopped at a wireless shop and got a sim card. The issue was when we traveled to France we were back to no cell phone since we didn't want to buy another sim card.

There is something you can do in google maps to cache the data so you still have the maps work even if you phone is in airplane mode. This really helped us when we didn't have data.

http://www.wired.com/2014/02/offline-google-maps/

 

[sunshinehighway]

I have Verizon. When I went to Europe, I got the $25 Global data plan and took it off when I got back. It's not a lot of data (100 or 200 MB, i think) but if you go over they just charge you another $25 instead of per MB (which has outrageous rates).
I mainly used to for maps and checking opening times while I was out and about, then used WiFi back at the hotel for everything else.
The nice thing was it worked in each country without me having to do anything.

 

[MomToOne]

First of all, be aware that with many US phones, you can only get 3G data in Europe, not 4G LTE or HSPA+ - this has to do with the differences in networks and frequencies used. This may change your desired to even get data - 3G data isn't all too useful. I got a prepaid Lebara France SIM for my phone (Android) when we were in France last year. We ended up not using it much because it was just too painful.

I'd start with researching more about the iPhone 6 in Europe. From what I'm reading, it gets complicated if you bought it through a carrier - you have to check what frequencies they've unlocked vs. the frequencies the European carriers are using.

Here's one page to start: http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

 

[florep1]

i forgot to add that the school in Germany offered them a basic phone that just had voice and text, no data. My daughter used that to communicate with her host family, friends, and school. It was a rental phone so she didn't have to buy hardware. All she had to pay for was the monthly access which was minimal.

 

[scrapquitler]

Hi, My son is going to be in Florence, Italy on for a college summer abroad program for five weeks or so. They just have class Mon. - Thurs. so can do a little weekend travel. He's also going to do a five night stay in London before going home too (staying in a youth hostel there).

Our cell service is Verison, and he has an IPhone 6. In the US we are on a 4 GB data plan. Version doesn't have any economical options for Europe, though. Anyway, our current plan phone wise is to have cellular data turned off except when he has wifi, and I did get (thru Verison) a low 100 minutes, 100 texts, 100 MB data plan (which is hardly anything) just in case of an emergency while he is over there. Data charges in Europe are absolutely outrageous thru them in the pay as you go mode.

It would be so nice though to have a decent amount of cellular data for traveling (google maps) etc. at a half way reasonable price. Has anyone gotten on a European plan -- sim card you could put in your phone I phone 6 from Verison or gotten another phone and done a plan for lets say two months. If so, what did you do and how much was that? If it's not all that expensive it would be a nice luxury to have abroad.

Ask the program organizers about this. It is likely that they can guide you about what the best option is. I know the program that I used when I studied abroad in college now offers a cellphone package as part of the program fees where they give you a local phone plan with a local provider. If not, he could buy it there.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. We were originally thinking just wifi and Skype which would be no added cost, but posted as we'd really like cellular data too for him. Appreciate the other suggestions.

And FYI -- We do have health insurance through the university, plus I added some with Geoblue for the London stay I bought for $11. Our primary coverage thru United Health care -- ds is on that covers international and even has medical evac coverage too, but a pretty high deductible for that.

Wow Quenneileen. That T-Mobile deal sounds amazing and my mom has T-Mobile and an extra line and extra phones. Think we'll put him on that and have her add the international option. (We'll check it out to see if that would work for us.).

We got a TMobile Unlimited everything (including data) when we went to Europe last year on one unlocked iPhone and 2 iPads. We still have unlimited data on our locked iPhones, so we appreciated not having to worry about managing our data. It was not the cheapest option, but it was easy and a relative bargain compared to the rest of the trip! We used the data in the UK, France, Italy and Spain with no issues. -- Suzanne

 

[Lewisc]

Your Verizon iPhone is unlocked. You can buy a SIM card and replace your Verizon SIM card with a card you buy in Europe. Just need a SIM removal tool (bent paper clip).

You're allover the place. What do you really want? You can get an app which lets you use navigation offline. The app lets you "pre-download" maps to your device while on WiFi.

Do you want to be able to call your child, using his existing number, at all times? Use the VZ plan you mentioned in the OP.

Do you want to maximize available cellular data? You'll want to buy a local (country specific) SIM card. You'll be buying them from a local cell shop or maybe a supermarket.You'll need to buy a card in Italy and a different card in England. Swap out the card the phone won't be using your VZ phone number...Roaming between countries in Europe isn't much different then roaming between the US and Europe.

What and whee to buy. You need current information. Go to the Italy forum on trip advisor. Search for SIM card. Look for posts withing the last year (6 months is better). An example: Last year I pad $10 (Euro) for 2 gig in Ireland. The data was around 7 or 8. I used some of the extra for voice calls to the US (around 3c /minute). I burned the rest making calls withing Ireland. Expensive.

Alternative--Ebay You need to carefully read the auctions. Many are for multi-country SIMS. Pricing might be a little better then what VZ is offering. A country specific SIM will give you the best deal. You'll usually pay more, the seller is generally buying the SIM cards at about the same pricing you'd pay if you wait until you arrive. The ebay seller marks up the price to cover "free shipping" and a small profit.

You could buy a SIM card in Italy but use your VZ plan in England.