Roam Mobility

[Cottager]

We just walked in the door from a stay at Art of Animation in the Cars section. There was NO T-Mobile(Roam Mobility) coverage in that section of the resort. The only carrier showing was AT&T. I know when you go to place your Roam Mobility order, they have you check the coverage area and add an extra $1/day (I think) to have roaming coverage which may have fixed this issue. Since Pop Century is right next door, you should check the coverage map very closely.

Roam Mobility seemed to have coverage in all of the parks and Disney Springs but nothing at the one end of the hotel (Cars section).

 

[jtdl]

I ended up getting it for one day to see if it would work and it didn't. I then called Telus and got their US Roam package which also did not work anywhere at the resort other than out front by the bus stops. Although this particular trip was most likely not Roam Mobility's fault, I think I will just stick with Telus' US package for now on, it seems I always end up switching to it anyway.

 

[ottawamom]

I was beginning to get worried about Roam mobility and its coverage at Disney so I did a little more research. I found this website which is based on user signal strength reports. http://www.sensorly.com/map/4G/US/U...+buena+vista+dr.+lake+buena+vista+fl|coverage . I can see where some resorts have spotty coverage. As someone said on one of the review sites I read. Coverage is Roam mobility's fault it is that T-mobile doesn't have coverage in certain areas.

 

[Starwind]

I used to be a happy Roam user, for the most part. But the little things have added up and we had one bad experience recently and I am now not so happy a customer.

I have used it on many trips to multiple US cities, including WDW. Some common challenges we ran into on most trips:

- you often had to hold the handset away from your head to place a call and once it went through you could put it up to your head; the phone ONLY does this with the Roam SIM, not with Rogers or AT&T

- in our hotel rooms at WDW to get a signal beyond one or zero bars you had to have the phone near or at the window/balcony doors. Having it on the bed meant no or very poor signal, and not enough signal for data

- that said, outdoors at Disney we had pretty good coverage and data speeds.

Then on a recent trip where we would be in an "extended" Roam area for some of the time (verified on their map it was in the coverage area) and wanted coverage there, we paid the extra $1 per day for extended coverage. We got no coverage. No signal at all. So, wasted $. While it amounted to all of $5 because it was a short trip, it was the principle. I called Roam to complain that there was no signal at all and I wanted that $1 per day back and was told there is no refund. Not a happy customer.

I have had an AT&T cell number for decades as a result of previously living in the US. It has been on the cheapest GoPhone plan for years and years. AT&T has not always been very favourable to smartphones, especially iphones, on GoPhone (well, they were downright hostile for years), but they have gotten much better recently and are embracing them. I have tried adding their $100 MB for $1 data package to the plan I am on and it worked flawlessly the couple times I have tried it -- and in in area Roam has zero coverage at all. I am seriously considering for our next trip to WDW that we will just use AT&T and that I will get an AT&T SIM for my sister's phone as well. Use the $60/month plan for the time of the trip and then before the 30 days are up switch it back to the $2-per-day-used plan. I am fairly sure we are done with Roam.

Unfortunately, AT&T would not be an option for everyone, but for those who it is it may be worth considering. There are some downsides to it, like minimum $ to put on to keep your number for X days, so do your research.

SW

 

[bankr63]

Starwind, since you appear to be on Rogers, why not just add Roam Like Home to your Rogers account? Requires a change to a share everything plan if not already on, but for $5 day ($50 cap) that is cheaper than AT&T, roams on AT&T, and you don't need to change phone numbers, SIM cards, or anything! I dumped Roam Mobility as soon as Rogers came out with a cost competitive program.

 

[mab2012]

- you often had to hold the handset away from your head to place a call and once it went through you could put it up to your head; the phone ONLY does this with the Roam SIM, not with Rogers or AT&T

For what it's worth, this is probably not Roam's fault. Sounds like an RF issue on the phone with the particular band(s) used by T-Mobile/Roam. Impact could be limited to the phone model, hardware revision, or even just that individual phone.

I have my issues with Roam (particularly after they raised their data/text daily rate by 50%), but so far haven't found anything that suits me better. One thing to watch for on the 2G data/text plan is that phone cellular settings might need to be adjusted to force connection to a 2G network in some areas. I was having issues on a recent road trip until I switched my network preference away from all network types (2G/3G/4G/LTE) to 2G only. The radio kept trying to connect on 3G or LTE, and then disconnecting - presumably Roam was rejecting the connection, but the phone didn't have any reason to fall back to 2G with strong higher-bandwidth signal available. After I switched to 2G only it was great. You wouldn't want to try anything too data intensive on a 2G connection, but it's fine for email or data messaging and even maps, especially if your expected route is cached before setting out.

 

[Starwind]

For what it's worth, this is probably not Roam's fault. Sounds like an RF issue on the phone with the particular band(s) used by T-Mobile/Roam. Impact could be limited to the phone model, hardware revision, or even just that individual phone.

I have my issues with Roam (particularly after they raised their data/text daily rate by 50%), but so far haven't found anything that suits me better. One thing to watch for on the 2G data/text plan is that phone cellular settings might need to be adjusted to force connection to a 2G network in some areas. I was having issues on a recent road trip until I switched my network preference away from all network types (2G/3G/4G/LTE) to 2G only. The radio kept trying to connect on 3G or LTE, and then disconnecting - presumably Roam was rejecting the connection, but the phone didn't have any reason to fall back to 2G with strong higher-bandwidth signal available. After I switched to 2G only it was great. You wouldn't want to try anything too data intensive on a 2G connection, but it's fine for email or data messaging and even maps, especially if your expected route is cached before setting out.

I've experienced the same handset-away-from-head problem on 4 phones (2 different iphone models). Once I figured out how to solve it (hold away from head until connected) it was just annoying, though it took some time to train oneself to do it all the time... We still continued to use Roam.

*nods* re: adjusting settings for the extended coverage area. Will keep that in mind if we end up using them again.

Since I have had the AT&T for a long time anyway and they now have friendlier plans, *for me* it may make more sense to use them than Roam. For someone who doesn't already have them, especially if accessing them initially to get signed up is a challenge, then it probably is not a good option and Roam may well be much better. Regardless of what we end up going with in the future, Roam will be a backup option for us: I will bring their SIM card with me when I travel to the US in case I need to use it.

There are so many factors to consider; cost and service quality being just two of them.

Too bad the phone companies couldn't make it easy (and affordable) !!

SW

 

[Starwind]

Starwind, since you appear to be on Rogers, why not just add Roam Like Home to your Rogers account? Requires a change to a share everything plan if not already on, but for $5 day ($50 cap) that is cheaper than AT&T, roams on AT&T, and you don't need to change phone numbers, SIM cards, or anything! I dumped Roam Mobility as soon as Rogers came out with a cost competitive program.

I do not have a "Share Everything" plan so cannot use Roam Like Home. The plan I do have is an older grandfathered share plan that is about 1/2 the cost of the current comparable share everything plan.

SW

 

[mab2012]

I've experienced the same handset-away-from-head problem on 4 phones (2 different iphone models). Once I figured out how to solve it (hold away from head until connected) it was just annoying, though it took some time to train oneself to do it all the time... We still continued to use Roam.

*nods* re: adjusting settings for the extended coverage area. Will keep that in mind if we end up using them again.

Since I have had the AT&T for a long time anyway and they now have friendlier plans, *for me* it may make more sense to use them than Roam. For someone who doesn't already have them, especially if accessing them initially to get signed up is a challenge, then it probably is not a good option and Roam may well be much better. Regardless of what we end up going with in the future, Roam will be a backup option for us: I will bring their SIM card with me when I travel to the US in case I need to use it.

There are so many factors to consider; cost and service quality being just two of them.

Too bad the phone companies couldn't make it easy (and affordable) !!

SW

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm arguing with you - that's not my intent at all - but your post reminded me of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/25/iphone-reception-problems-solved

Clearly, you're just holding it wrong.

 

[Maddysdaddy]

I've always found Roam's coverage at WDW to be spotty depending what park or hotel we were staying at. As an example, while staying at Kidani Lodge at AK a few years back, I had reasonable service in some parts of the hotel, but zero coverage in our room (the hotel wifi was also spotty in the room, so was hoping to use data on my phone).

 

[Sprockie]

I used to be a loyal Roam customer, but with the recent price increases and 6 month expiry of the sim card, I am out. Telus has introduced a new program for $7/day using my own number and cell plan. It's going to be a bit more money, but worth it for the frustration IMO.