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Jul 26, 2012 15:57:05 GMT -5
Post by Catzmadam on Jul 26, 2012 15:57:05 GMT -5
OK this is one of those posts that I said I would be making yesterday. Nothing to do with todays news, but hopefully it's OK to post 
Does anyone know if catzmadam and vecadam will be able to tweet while they're travelling? They're both on twitter, right?
And sorry for sounding totally ignorant (which I am
) but is it easy for peeps to use their phones in every country? Like, does it get wildly expensive depending on what country you're in?
This was one of the last posts I read before heading off to the airport for my Queenbert adventure, but didn't have time to respond.
I spent literally weeks (off and on) researching how to have cheap internet and data while I was away. There were many, many ways of doing it.
What I decided on was to buy a local sim card for my iPhone in each country as local data was WAY, and I mean WAY cheaper that getting a international roaming plan. To do this however, the phone has to be unlocked.
There are two terms out there that people get confused with. One is 'unlocked' and the other is 'jail broken'. They are different things.
Jail broken means that the Apple operating system is somehow over ridden so that a lot of third party applications that Apple does not allow becomes available and can be downloaded on to iPhone and used.
Unlocked is a whole different ball game. In NZ every iPhone is unlocked regardless, BUT if you don't purchase it outright, then you have to go on a plan with eg. Telecom, Vodafone etc. This does lock you into that carriers plan for the amount of time you have signed up for and until you pay the cost of the phone off. After that you are free to choose whatever carrier/plan you want. I bought mine outright which allowed me to change sim card/carriers at will. The only problem (for some, but not me) is that with each sim card change out, you are allocated a brand new phone number pertinent to that card. This was not a problem for me as I don't actually use my phone as a *erm* phone very often :4OMG: . I just wanted it for internet, twitter and live streaming. It was all about having enough data - in particular for streaming as that was my main plan.
Now, from what I gather, the rules are very different in the US. AT&T and Verizon have you locked into them regardless (bastards :-/) and it costs a small fortune to get them unlocked. Hence, many US peeps were stuck with either paying for an extra AT&T international plan, or paying mind numbing, eye watering, leg crossing global roaming fees.
There are usually two types of plans.
1) is normally all about phone calls and texts with a very small amount of data
2) is about data with more than adequate (short term) phone calls and texts
So.... this is how it worked for me.
Russia:- Unlimited data for 7 days cost approx NZ$14
Poland:- 1GB data for 3 days cost approx NZ$6
UK:- 500MB data for 30 days cost approx NZ$20
USA:- 200MB for 30 days cost (wait for it) $NZ62 :dunno:
And I almost used all of this up in just 5 days.
The UK plan automatically rolled over to global roaming when I went to Paris, but only let me have 25MB a day and it got chewed up so fast it was ridiculous. However, apart from a couple of days with flying/timing issues plus hotels wifi, I managed to stay connected to the net around the world, somewhat keep up with twitter and the news, and stream two concerts live for approx NZ$100 (US$79), which is pretty friggin good IMHO.
Sorry for long ass post, but I'm hoping this info will help others somehow in the future.
And sorry for sounding totally ignorant (which I am
) but is it easy for peeps to use their phones in every country? Like, does it get wildly expensive depending on what country you're in?This was one of the last posts I read before heading off to the airport for my Queenbert adventure, but didn't have time to respond.
I spent literally weeks (off and on) researching how to have cheap internet and data while I was away. There were many, many ways of doing it.
What I decided on was to buy a local sim card for my iPhone in each country as local data was WAY, and I mean WAY cheaper that getting a international roaming plan. To do this however, the phone has to be unlocked.
There are two terms out there that people get confused with. One is 'unlocked' and the other is 'jail broken'. They are different things.
Jail broken means that the Apple operating system is somehow over ridden so that a lot of third party applications that Apple does not allow becomes available and can be downloaded on to iPhone and used.
Unlocked is a whole different ball game. In NZ every iPhone is unlocked regardless, BUT if you don't purchase it outright, then you have to go on a plan with eg. Telecom, Vodafone etc. This does lock you into that carriers plan for the amount of time you have signed up for and until you pay the cost of the phone off. After that you are free to choose whatever carrier/plan you want. I bought mine outright which allowed me to change sim card/carriers at will. The only problem (for some, but not me) is that with each sim card change out, you are allocated a brand new phone number pertinent to that card. This was not a problem for me as I don't actually use my phone as a *erm* phone very often :4OMG: . I just wanted it for internet, twitter and live streaming. It was all about having enough data - in particular for streaming as that was my main plan.
Now, from what I gather, the rules are very different in the US. AT&T and Verizon have you locked into them regardless (bastards :-/) and it costs a small fortune to get them unlocked. Hence, many US peeps were stuck with either paying for an extra AT&T international plan, or paying mind numbing, eye watering, leg crossing global roaming fees.
There are usually two types of plans.
1) is normally all about phone calls and texts with a very small amount of data
2) is about data with more than adequate (short term) phone calls and texts
So.... this is how it worked for me.
Russia:- Unlimited data for 7 days cost approx NZ$14
Poland:- 1GB data for 3 days cost approx NZ$6
UK:- 500MB data for 30 days cost approx NZ$20
USA:- 200MB for 30 days cost (wait for it) $NZ62 :dunno:
And I almost used all of this up in just 5 days.The UK plan automatically rolled over to global roaming when I went to Paris, but only let me have 25MB a day and it got chewed up so fast it was ridiculous. However, apart from a couple of days with flying/timing issues plus hotels wifi, I managed to stay connected to the net around the world, somewhat keep up with twitter and the news, and stream two concerts live for approx NZ$100 (US$79), which is pretty friggin good IMHO.
Sorry for long ass post, but I'm hoping this info will help others somehow in the future.
and he said his dad had been a DJ at one time and he talked about the large LP music collection he had. Then we talked about the music industry today and, of course I just kind of brought up AFL who he knew of but didn't have his album. Well when I went back to get the picture today I gave him a copy of the Deluxe Trespassing which he was excited to get and hopefully we'll have a new fan who can go tell all his buddies about Adam! ;D
