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Will be travelling to the US a bit and trying to determine the least expensive way to get my unlocked iPhone online.

My provider (Rogers) has a standard US data roaming rate of $30/mb but also offers travel add-on packs that you can buy for 30 days of usage:

Add on packs are:

  • 10mb for $30 ($3/mb)
  • 25mb for $50 ($2/mb)
  • 75mb for $60 ($0.80/mb)

Alternate carrier options I know of so far:

  1. AT&T GoPhone prepaid service - $20 for 100mb, but you have to be careful not to tell them you are using their prepaid service with an iPhone and you need to muck with APN settings -- walkthrough one, walkthrough two.

  2. T-Mobile's Unlimited $1/day Sidekick data plan - not sure if this is still offered. Caveats are that T-Mobile will only work on EDGE with iPhone and you need alternate APN settings as well as possibly needing a (paid) proxy to use it

Curious if there are other options out there - I guess it's limited to AT&T and T-Mobile since those are the only compatible (or semi-compatible for T-Mobile) networks in the US...

Here's a wiki dedicated to prepaid data roaming, however it doesn't have much information on US (yet)

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  • Do you need mobile access, or would WiFi at a public access point be OK? You might have to buy a cup of coffee or two...
    – Niall C.
    Jul 28, 2010 at 21:24
  • needs to be mobile access.
    – Josh Newman
    Jul 28, 2010 at 23:13
  • Thinking about going with an AT&T iPad MicroSIM - $15 for 250mb. Curious how easy it will be to walk into an AT&T store and pay cash (or prepaid credit card) for an iPad MicroSIM. Would then need the custom APN settings to use in the iPhone
    – Josh Newman
    Aug 5, 2010 at 0:58
  • Does the APN settings hack still work as of May 2011?
    – Ilya
    May 12, 2011 at 10:12

3 Answers 3

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My solution was to activate an iPad MicroSIM and use it in the iPhone. It required a bit of trickery to get it going but worked like a charm - $25USD for 2GB for 30 days

Activating an iPad MicroSIM from Safari (when you don't have an iPad to use): http://modmyi.com/forums/unlocking-activation/712894-activating-ipad-3g-sim-without-ipad.html

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T-Mobile no longer provides (officially or unofficially) prepaid $1/day data access for anything except the actual Sidekick device, nor do they have any other prepaid data options. They do offer no-contract postpaid voice, data, and texts through their Even More Plus plans, but you need to set up an account, billing, etc for these plans.

If all you're looking to do is get online, another option is to rent a MiFi. It's a little pricey, but you can use it with your laptop, iPhone, and whatever else you have that has WiFi.

If that doesn't work for you, then it seems that you'll have to either go with AT&T, use Rogers' data roaming, or try to find a prepaid data plan through a regional carrier.

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T mobile has a prepaid plan that is 30. per month with unlimited data and texts and 100 minutes talk but you have to buy the sim at walmart. then you can cancel after the first month if you don't need it longer.HOWEVER I don't know if it works in iphones.

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    Welcome to Ask Different! This was asked four years ago, so your answer is most likely irrelevant in the scope of this question.
    – Andrew Larsson
    Mar 9, 2014 at 21:44

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