[Closed] 3 mobile roaming USA

I've been looking into this and if does seem to just be 3g.

A lad I work with is with 3, while in America he roamed like home. His bill was the usual £50 but they sent a text to let him know he saved £3700 over what it could of cost him!

I'm going to pick up a 3 PAYG SIM for layer this month when I'm over there.

It's definitely only 3G, and often seemed capped at a low speed (think dial-up) when I was using it.  Changed to EE on a Max plan and get 4G everywhere now.

I have a 3 SIM just for this. I was in NY last week and think the max I got was 3g, but really, who cares? 3g was more than enough for my needs in a large city, where there is great wifi too.

More of an issue is out of the city, where you might have no signal, let alone 4g.

EE max plan no longer available 😕

bought a 3 sim and the 4G at my house is pants on 3.

EE max plan no longer available

Still advertising them in their website

Im on a Max Plan saved a fortune in Canada and always really fast

It's ok, but nothing better.  You can get a 1month sim for £15 with 5gb data plus calls... And I think I got at least a duvet cash back on that too

was looking at sim only not phone and sim package

I bought a 3 PAYG sim for a recent trip and as soon as I got there I got messages saying I’d used all my data and had to spend a while sorting it. They fixed the issue but it wasn’t as easy as I expected.

I'm currently in the USA on a 3 PAYG SIM which has always worked well for me. Speed isn't great though I thought it did 4g when signal was ok. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Currently 3g in a weak signal areas.

EE 4G Max has the edge over 3 in that it covers Canada as well, or at least was important to me.

If you're on a monthly contract, check the upgrade section, as it keeps offering me a better deal for data despite not long taken out one (SIM only). Varies when you look though.

That said, for SIM only upgrades I'm not seeing Max plan, only for contracts with phone.

Problem with 3 is coverage in UK for the more rural areas I go to.

currently compiling various deals from carphone warehouse, 3,  etc. To try and get a better upgrade deal than I'm seeing and have been offered at present.

when i was there I just presumed they didn't have that many 4G masts

I have a 3 SIM just for this

As have I.  Ten quid top-up saw me right for a fortnight (or would have done if I'd remembered to convert it to whatever their international roaming bolt-on thing is called this week).

3 is great when roaming abroad. Often better signal than at home which can be patchy. However when I visited NYC last year the data signal was awful, on the last day I discovered it was because my phone was set to used the latest technology available, which was 4g but 3 in the US is only 3g. Once I forced my phone to use 3g in was fine

when i was there I just presumed they didn’t have that many 4G masts

There are frequency differences and not all UK phones cover the same frequency ranges that US networks use and depends also on the roaming partners with your UK operator and what deal they have. So there may be 4G but you may not get it, depending on phone and network.

I have found that US and Canada, 3G, H+ and even Edge connections managed to get okay data, whereas I'm finding in the UK these are delivering virtually nothing and only 4G is any good now.

Got two Three SIMS for iphones for Florida earlier this year and worked a treat. I added £10 or poss £15 credit converted to the bundle and installed the Three app to keep tabs on consumption. Recommended.

3G only for me in Colorado, South Dakota and Utah. No service whatsoever in most of Wyoming, which is the state that GSM forgot.

Lesson learned - when you return to an area of service, remove and replace the SIM to make it work again.

switching off and on again has always worked for me...

One thing that I found annoying is that there's supposed to be service along a lot of the main roads through wyoming etc, and indeed there is if you use any standard US carrier, but this doesn't pass through to the roaming agreements with 3 (and presumably other UK carriers). IIRC it's provided by someone else and then sold on to the main US carriers.

I think part of the problem is the fact that the is mobile industry is a mess compared to the uk. I mean they charge people to receive text messages FFS.

anyway. Roaming is difficult. I have used three and generally it is fine. Whether you get 3G or 4g I think has more to do with the 4g bands that your phone can access (some us carriers use different frequencies than those in Europe) and whether or not the bandwidth is available (us carriers have to cover a huge area, they are quite militant about downgrading roaming and MVNO users).

If you have a popular phone (iPhone, Samsung) then you will probably be fine as they generally only release one phone with all the bands enabled. If you are using a cheaper phone from a brand which does not sell in the US then you may struggle.

How often do you need to use a phone in States? I’d sooner hole punch my foreskin than sign up to 3.

Nothing wrong with the network per se but the customer service experience is horrific - constantly trying to upsell and cross-sell at every opportunity and trying to leave is one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had (and I’ve literally been disembowelled).

Spoke to EE retention team, wasn't offered a reasonable deal on the a max plan. Did however get a good deal on sim only plans x 4  for the family. After trying the 3 sim at home it was pretty crap compared to the network and speed from EE

Will just stick a 3 payg sim when away and make do with that

Just done an Arizona, Utah, Colorado road trip, I'm on three and it was 3G only, though through the top of Arizona there was really no signal at all. Utah and Colorado were OK in reasonable sized towns.