I have a Nexus 4, and am going to Google I/O; need help with prepaid data plans.

[nimer55]

Hi,

I live in Canada, and DO NOT want to use my current plan because roaming prices are ridiculous. The best deal I've found so far is t-mobiles 3$/day with 200mb of "4g" data. I also know there are a bunch of smaller carriers that use on the bigger networks, but don't know much about them..

Also, I know that different networks perform differently in different areas; does anyone know how at&t and T-mobile compare in that region? (my hotel is less than a mile from the convention center, so I only care about reception in the region around that; Though reception near the airport would be nice as well.)

I'll be staying from the 14-18.

Thank you.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

T-Mobile's daily plans are probably going to be your best bet if you'll only be using it for a couple of days. Many MVNOs only have monthly plans in order to be economically feasible. T-Mobile, owning their own network, can do dailies. Someone else will have to speak of reception.

 

[gone down south]

Tmobile is fine all up and down Silicon Valley. Weird little one block pockets of no data signal here and there, but nothing major.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

 

[anon(795319)]

Check out Ready SIM | Prepaid SIM Cards for a Temporary Phone Number they use T-Mobile network. Also try and get a free Google Voice account to bypass Canada calling rates.

 

[nimer55]

T-Mobile's daily plans are probably going to be your best bet if you'll only be using it for a couple of days. Many MVNOs only have monthly plans in order to be economically feasible. T-Mobile, owning their own network, can do dailies. Someone else will have to speak of reception.

Thanks. Yea, it's hard to beat the $3/day for unlimited everything. (well 4g data limited to 200mb, but there should be wifi most places. I mainly need it for maps. Though I don't think my hotel has free wifi, there's a Starbucks that's a 2 minute walk.)

Tmobile is fine all up and down Silicon Valley. Weird little one block pockets of no data signal here and there, but nothing major.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

Great to hear! Do you know around what speeds I should expect? (not too important, as long as it has reception, I'm happy)

Check out Ready SIM | Prepaid SIM Cards for a Temporary Phone Number they use T-Mobile network. Also try and get a free Google Voice account to bypass Canada calling rates.

I won't be there a full week, and prefer the convenience of getting it in stores (Shipping it to Canada can be complicated), so I'll likely stick with T-Mobile. Good point about Google voice, I'd completely forgotten about that. Free calls to Canada and US; THANKS!

 

[Unicorn Rancher]

If speed isn't important, the $2/day plan has unlimited 2G data.

 

[wunderbar]

Check out Roam Mobility. Canadian Company that specializes in providing SIM's/phones for travel to the USA. I use it for my travel to the USA and it works great. You can get a plan with unlimited talk+text and 700MB of data for 7 days that works out fo $4/day. You just have to also pay for the SIM at the start. They also have talk+text only plans or a mobile hotspot with a data only plan.

sure it's $1/day more than T-Mobile's prepaid plan but it is also a canadain company so no hassle of dealing with getting a T-Mobile SIM, and you can get the SIM shipped to your door before you go to the US.

 

[gone down south]

Pretty consistent 15/3 speeds around here, but I just realized that you're talking about the signal inside SF. As always, the city center has weird coverage, buildings and concrete make for strange dead zones. That said, tmo is no worse than any other carrier and service will be fine.


And be sure that Google will make sure you have kickass Wifi coverage at the conference center the whole time.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums