Quote:
Originally Posted by Suijin
I have Google Fi which has worked in every country I have been in. Google partners with carriers in each country and it's seamless from the user's perspective. It's $20/month, with $10/gb up to 6 gb, for a monthly maximum of $80. Above 6gb it's throttled to 256kbs unless you pay an exorbitant fee for more bandwidth. In foreign countries you do pay international calling rates but texting is free and unlimited.
That said when I got to the Dominican Republic I swapped in a local SIM card and data here is dirt cheap. $2 for 15gb, and you can re-up as often as you like.
In the Bahamas Aliv is like $85 for 300gb...
So I keep my Google Fi, so I have a permanent phone number, and is good for "stop gap" data, but I look at local options for data wherever I go.
Wifi extenders? Good to have as an option, but unsecured networks are getting fewer and farther between these days. Sometimes you get lucky and find one. Would I shell out for a built-in system like the Bullet? Not anymore. |
I had a Google Fi sim for our 2018-2019 winter in the
Caribbean & agree it's a great "stop gap", seamless as noted, and there doesn't seem to be a limit on tethering. However, it actually doesn't throttle you until 15GB ("unlimited" for $80/month after 6GB .. only to 15GB, so basically it's $80/15GB), then it's indeed painfully slow and you'll have pay an additional $10/GB for relief, which can add up quick. If you're sharing the hotspot, make sure devices aren't set to autodownload the latest podcasts/shows/etc when on
wifi.
In most places, Digicel/etc had dirt
cheap pay-as-you-go local data plans, but you have to go get a new one in each country. In the French islands, Orange had good post-pay plans--we did the max, ~€70/100GB.
We had bought a Digital Yacht 4G Connect router which worked in the US &
Antigua, and then never again (something about wrong bandwidths for the other countries' sim cards). Total waste. We didn't use our wifi extender either because connections were always crappy.
A note on Verizon 75GB plans -- there IS a throttle if you're tethering to a computer at 20/22GB. I've hit it a few times while trying to
work, and not always in busy places, and it's very annoying. That said, now that we are back in the US, I have discontinued Google Fi for Verizon. It's $100/month + $10 for my
iPad sim (cuz streaming TV), for basically unlimited data & not having to think further about it.
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