Using in US Virgin Islands

[Jason Fournier1]

The Verizon trip planner says no cost for calls, texting, or data in the USVI. However since arriving I realized there are no towers here and the phone always shows roaming. Does that mean the roaming is free?

 

[Rukbat]

"Roaming" is an old term that used to mean that you were roaming on a roaming partner's tower (and probably paying $5/day for the "privilege"). Now it just means that the tower is identifying as something other than Verizon. As long as you have something in writing from Verizon that says that there's no charge for using the phone in the USVI, there is none.

Sprint is a USVI CDMA carrier, so you may be "roaming" on their towers (it depends on with whom Verizon has a "roaming" contract).

 

[Jason Fournier1]

To follow-up, I used the phone with no extra charges while in vacation. Unfortunately they only have 3G service. One tip is to preload the island map in Google maps for flawless navigation.