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snidely · **An alternative to prepaid SIM cards? -** 23-01-2016, 19:58

As many of you know, T-Mobile US includes international roaming in most countries. Unlimited text and data. Voice calls are $.20/min. For incoming or outgoing. Calls back to the US over Wi-Fi are free.
Just recently, we started using the voice calling feature on the Facebook subsidiary "WhatsApp". Obviously, this feature can only be used in calling people within your family or group. Your business calls would still have to be made in the usual way. What amazed me was, the voice quality last week of calls between the US and Costa Rica were almost as good as regular cell phone calls. Sometimes the cell phone in Costa Rica was on Wi-Fi and other times was making use of the free data over cellular. Skype, and other similar apps could also be used in this manner.
That the EU is breaking down roaming barriers is one step towards obviating the need for international SIM cards. I'm sure other carriers in the world will follow T-Mobile's lead.

Up until about 15 years ago, those of us in the US paid huge roaming costs just use the phone outside our local area. We had to pay long-distance charges, up until about 10 years ago. For the last five or 10 years there has been no such thing as a long-distance call within the US. It shouldn't be too long before the whole world is considered "local".

I can possibly see the need for a temporary local SIM so that you have a local number to give out when you are in a temporary fixed location for a while.

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snidely (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Expert Posts: 451 Join Date: 09 May 2005 Location: Berkeley, California and Miami Country:	An alternative to prepaid SIM cards? - 23-01-2016, 19:58 As many of you know, T-Mobile US includes international roaming in most countries. Unlimited text and data. Voice calls are $.20/min. For incoming or outgoing. Calls back to the US over Wi-Fi are free. Just recently, we started using the voice calling feature on the Facebook subsidiary "WhatsApp". Obviously, this feature can only be used in calling people within your family or group. Your business calls would still have to be made in the usual way. What amazed me was, the voice quality last week of calls between the US and Costa Rica were almost as good as regular cell phone calls. Sometimes the cell phone in Costa Rica was on Wi-Fi and other times was making use of the free data over cellular. Skype, and other similar apps could also be used in this manner. That the EU is breaking down roaming barriers is one step towards obviating the need for international SIM cards. I'm sure other carriers in the world will follow T-Mobile's lead. Up until about 15 years ago, those of us in the US paid huge roaming costs just use the phone outside our local area. We had to pay long-distance charges, up until about 10 years ago. For the last five or 10 years there has been no such thing as a long-distance call within the US. It shouldn't be too long before the whole world is considered "local". I can possibly see the need for a temporary local SIM so that you have a local number to give out when you are in a temporary fixed location for a while. Make use of T-M's UMA/wifi free calling from any place in the world with access to wifi. I use an LG G6, wife an S7) A/o Oct 20, 2013 no need for intl prepaid as T-Mobile U.S. includes voice roaming at 20¢/min (in and out)., unlimited text (in and out), and unlimited data in 140+ countries. My Plan -[6 lines] U.S. T-Mobile unlimited minutes (incoming and outgoing), unlimited text, fast data on each line. that $145/mo. total! . (In U.S. no surcharge for calling a cell.) If a line exceeds 2G of data in a month, pay $10 more for that line. [That only happens a couple times/year.