Roaming On T-mo Usa Prepaid

[snaimon]

I don't really have a good answer. I would suspect it comes down to international roaming agreements. TRUE, they exist for postpaid, but I suspect prepaid is a bit different. IF the billing comes later, because of the CONTRACT, postpaid can collect. For prepaid, the calls can be made, the card balance goes to 0, and THEN the billing comes in -- so how do you collect and pay? How quickly do your roaming charges reduce your balance on your D2 prepay?

I BELIEVE T-MO USA is somewhat independent of the parent in Germany.

Have you seen that TO GO text rates are going up? 5 cents to receive and 35 to send internationally. I was astonished myself to learn recently that TO GO internation SMS was 10 cents.

Stan

[Motel75]

Dunno why it would be much different from anywhere else; it's very rare for a European or Asian prepaid SIM to not offer international roaming, and I'm sure TMO USA has the same billing software as everyone else. Considering that providers make much of their income on the extortionate roaming prices, it's surprising that TMO (and Cingular) are missing out on this revenue stream, even if a far smaller number of American users roam internationally than do those in other countries.

[Motel75]

To answer your question, the roaming charges usually come off my Vodafone prepay pretty much instantaneously, as with my other prepaids when roaming. There's occasionally a slight lag, but usually not much; this is more the case for overseas SMS and data use than it is for calls.

[snaimon]

Here a ref to HOFO:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php...05&page=5&pp=15

One poster writes:

".....Roaming minutes are manually loaded into the billing system using TAP files that may takes weeks to arrive from the roaming partner. By the time the information reaches the billing system, the charges will have already been incurred."

I don't work for T-Mo and cannot verify what was said. TO DATE nobody has contradicted the post.

Since roaming is quite common in EU countries, I think they have it down fairly well. Roaming on T-MO basically costs nothing within the US; it just deducts from your usual minutes, either post pay or prepay. I have not used the phone overseas with my postpay T-MO SIM in it and don't plan to, so I do not know how quickly the minutes come. APPARENTLY, the OP of the thread arrived back from Jamaica and was startled by his bill of > $2000. He had used 1000 minutes while roaming in Jamaica. He was told by a CSR that the rate was $1.09 per minute.

That is all for now.

Stan

[mmthomas]

TMobile prepaid SIM was not recognized by any carrier in July/August 2006 in Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands. I was not in other countries.

[Motel75]

Or Germany, Poland, or the UK, two (and a half) of which are T-Mobile countries.

[AndreA]

Originally Posted by snaimon

Have you seen that TO GO text rates are going up? 5 cents to receive and 35 to send internationally. I was astonished myself to learn recently that TO GO internation SMS was 10 cents.

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/inde...showtopic=1433

[Bossman]

I am aware that they will now start charging for incoming SMS (received the notification). But, I have not heard anything about the increase in international SMS. At least I did not receive any notification to that effect on my payg phone.

[Motel75]

TMO representative told me yesterday "We're working on it" regarding international roaming, and that it should already work on Telefonica in Mexico. However, "we're working on it" has been their standard answer for the past year or so, so I'm not holding my breath, even though the first overseas networks I would expect it to work on would be T-Mobile's own, and not one belonging to its Spanish arch-enemy.

The FAQ now seems to imply it is an option: http://www.t-mobile.com/templates/faq.aspx...e#howtorecharge

[Triband81]

Originally Posted by Motel75

I would expect it to work on would be T-Mobile's own, and not one belonging to its Spanish arch-enemy.

The FAQ now seems to imply it is an option: http://www.t-mobile.com/templates/faq.aspx...e#howtorecharge

That may be true but you have to keep in mind that not too many T-Mobile To Go users are very likely to primarily travel to Germany or to the UK. T-Mobile USA must be wagering that T-Mobile To Go are more interested in North American roaming and that if anything a number of To Go subscribers have family or connections to Mexico. I wouldn't be surprised if at first the To Go roaming will be expanded to Canada and Mexico with Europe to follow later.