Cell phone use at WDW

[bankr63]

I find it interesting the Roam Mobility still doesn't have a comparison up for Rogers Roam Like Home. The price points are very similar, and you no longer have to swap out SIM cards. I still use Roam for my DS' phone (he's on Virgin here), but DW and I both have RLH on a Share Everything and it is completely no hassle, better connectivity in the US, for same $$$.

 

[xlxo]

I find it interesting the Roam Mobility still doesn't have a comparison up for Rogers Roam Like Home. The price points are very similar, and you no longer have to swap out SIM cards.

If you scroll down that comparison link.... you find a link to this page.
https://www.roammobility.com/blog/c...-to-roam-mobilitys-prepaid-usa-roaming-plans/

Some people's data consumption goes down on vacation. While others will go up.... Google Maps, checking home surveillance systems, researching last minute itineries, and of course.... lack of convenient fast home wifi. I just like the choice for high consumption, especially as a high data consumption user.

 

[Hemlock]

I went to Staples today to buy a Roam Mobility SIM card and saw that they have Ready SIM cards. 14 days of unlimited nationwide talk+text+date was $45, you can also add 500 minutes of international calling for $5 (rates for calling Canada are .01/minute). It seems would be cheaper than Roam mobility. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with Ready SIM?

 

[Aladora]

I went to Staples today to buy a Roam Mobility SIM card and saw that they have Ready SIM cards. 14 days of unlimited nationwide talk+text+date was $45, you can also add 500 minutes of international calling for $5 (rates for calling Canada are .01/minute). It seems would be cheaper than Roam mobility. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with Ready SIM?

I looked at ReadySIM when I was researching Roam and I chose Roam because we can and have reused our Roam SIMs on subsequent trips. I don't believe you can reactivate ReadySim cards. We've used our Roam cards on 3 US trips so far and will be using them again in May.

 

[disneyred]

Hello
How much are you spending per day or per trip on roam ?

 

[Hemlock]

Hello
How much are you spending per day or per trip on roam ?

For 14 days the Roam Mobility plan would cost about $79 ($10 for SIM card + $4.95 x 14). However, as noted above we keep the SIM card for future use. The Ready SIM would be $50 ($45 for nationwide talk/text/date + $5 for 500 calling minutes to Canada). I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cell phone plans, so I hope I'm adding this up correctly.

 

[disneyred]

Thx for your reply. Seems like many people are happy with roam. For your 4.95 per day. Is there a limit of what you can do one the phone Do you use lots of data?

 

[Aladora]

Thx for your reply. Seems like many people are happy with roam. For your 4.95 per day. Is there a limit of what you can do one the phone Do you use lots of data?

This is what you get. The plan is $4.95/day up to 14 days and $1.00/day after that. You pick the number of days and you are given the total amount of data up front to use as you need, so you are not limited to the 2G/day. So, for 14 days you would have 28G of data to use over those 14 days, you can use 1G on the first day, 5G on the second...etc. We turn off all unneeded apps and have never used all of our data.

You can check out the plans here: Roam Mobility

Talk+Text+Data
plans include:
UNLIMITED

• Nationwide Talk
• Global Text
• 2G Data**
• Global MMS
• Long-Distance Calls to Canada
• Hotspot tethering

• 500 MB 4G LTE Data*
• Voicemail
• Caller ID

 

[xlxo]

I went to Staples today to buy a Roam Mobility SIM card and saw that they have Ready SIM cards. 14 days of unlimited nationwide talk+text+date was $45, you can also add 500 minutes of international calling for $5 (rates for calling Canada are .01/minute). It seems would be cheaper than Roam mobility. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with Ready SIM?

Did some research online...

• ReadySIM is actually from Roam Mobility.... you are dealing with the same Vancouver company! ReadySIM came out in 2012.
  https://www.roammobility.com/blog/announcing-ready-sim-new-prepaid-wireless-service/
• Roam Mobility requires you to sign onto their website to activate and add funds to your plan. ReadySIM is preloaded... no need to activate the SIM card as it's ready to go! Ideal for those without credit cards.
• ReadySIM cards expire much quicker unused compared to regular Roam Mobility SIM's.
• comparing rates.... 14 days with ReadySIM is $35, Roam Mobility is $70. HOWEVER.... Roam Mobility offers 14gb of data, ReadySIM is only 1gb for those 14 days!
  http://www.readysim.com/shop.html
• So for low data users... go with ReadySIM. For those data hungry like me (Google Maps, messageing services, etc).... the regular Roam Mobility card is my choice!

 

[bankr63]

Aladora, that is not my read of how ROAM data works at all. It is 500MB of 4G/LTE data a day, and unlimited 3G per day. Once you hit your daily 4G limit, your phone throttles back to the slower speed. Next day you start back at 4G again, and the cycle repeats. Data is effectively unlimited, but the speed is limited after you max out on a daily basis.

 

[xlxo]

My vote goes to Aladora's description. Someone can contact Roam to confirm.

 

[Aladora]

Aladora, that is not my read of how ROAM data works at all. It is 500MB of 4G/LTE data a day, and unlimited 3G per day. Once you hit your daily 4G limit, your phone throttles back to the slower speed. Next day you start back at 4G again, and the cycle repeats. Data is effectively unlimited, but the speed is limited after you max out on a daily basis.

Whoops, a bit of an oops on my part, sort of. You get 500MB of data at 4G speed per day and after that you get unlimited 2G. You get all of your daily data up front so if you get 14 days, you get 7 Gigs of 4G data to use over your 14 days. Roam has a funny way that they phrase it, they say that you get 15 gigs of monthly data, prorated for the number of days you buy...essentially you get 500MB/day but they like to mention the 15 gigs/month.

We give you 15GB of 4G LTE data per month, prorated daily depending on your plan length. There is no daily limit on data usage. Data speed is throttled to 2G after your 4G LTE data is used up **2G refers to slow data up to a maximum of 128Kbps and is intended for sending and receiving emails only.

From the Roam website:

No-limit Data. We give you all your data up front so you can use it whenever you want.

US roaming Plans

 

[Starwind]

Aladora, that is not my read of how ROAM data works at all. It is 500MB of 4G/LTE data a day, and unlimited 3G per day. Once you hit your daily 4G limit, your phone throttles back to the slower speed. Next day you start back at 4G again, and the cycle repeats. Data is effectively unlimited, but the speed is limited after you max out on a daily basis.

This is only partially correct.

With Roam on a daily talk+text+data plan, a person gets 500 MB of 4G/LTE speed data times the number of days they purchase. So, 14 days = 500 MB * 14 = about 7 GB.* They load your data upfront, so on day one you will have that 7 GB of data at 4G/LTE speeds available. Once you have used up that 7 GB (whether you do it on day 1 or day 13), the rest of the data you use during your purchased days will be restricted to 2G speeds. 2G speed data is unlimited.


*note that sometimes they have a special on, as they did for my recent trip to the US, where they double your data or otherwise give you bonus data; these calculations are on the normal data allocation

SW

 

[cate2]

Somebody has probably already suggested this but when we're in Disney we just use their free wi fi to keep in touch. The phone vibrates when an email drops in just like a text and google talk (or face time if you have an iphone) allows you to directly connect - we've done this for the last three years in a row and seldom have an issue with it.

 

[DizzyDis]

I saw a post from about 1.5 years ago about Wind, but nothing since. Has anyone used Wind roaming while at WDW and do you have any comments on coverage? We are planning on adding the roaming while we are there, but DH and I have slightly different phones and live near the edge of our coverage area near home so sometimes his shows away and sometimes mine does. So, wondering if WDW is right in the middle of a good zone or still near the edge and if we should be making wi-fi plans instead of paying for roaming.

Thanks for any thoughts!

 

[TML2012]

Has anyone recently used Rogers in the park? I had some major issues back in 2014. I could not receive or make calls as all.

 

[MegaSilver]

Has anyone used Wind roaming while at WDW and do you have any comments on coverage?

I added the Wind US Roaming package for $15. Wind partners with AT&T and T-Mobile, so you bounce back and forth depending on what carrier has the strongest signal.

I only made two calls during my stay. One was on the bus between parks, and the other was on the basement floor of Sunshine Seasons cafe in Epcot. No problems on the bus, but many dropped calls in the basement of the restaurant. But, as a Wind customer, I'm used to bad service inside thick walls.

We stayed in CBR and never was without service. I connected to the WiFi, and never had a problem being out of range for Wifi if I needed it

 

[DizzyDis]

I added the Wind US Roaming package for $15. Wind partners with AT&T and T-Mobile, so you bounce back and forth depending on what carrier has the strongest signal.

I only made two calls during my stay. One was on the bus between parks, and the other was on the basement floor of Sunshine Seasons cafe in Epcot. No problems on the bus, but many dropped calls in the basement of the restaurant. But, as a Wind customer, I'm used to bad service inside thick walls.

We stayed in CBR and never was without service. I connected to the WiFi, and never had a problem being out of range for Wifi if I needed it

Great, thank you! I am debating whether we would add the $15, or just pay the 5 cents/text and 15 cents/minute for calls since we don't think we would really need to use it that much. The way I am reading it, we wouldn't need to pay for the package to get that, it would just be the regular "away" rates that we get in the outskirts of town here.

Thanks for the tips about the basement, good to know that we may run into some dead zones and dropped calls depending on where we go. And yes, I hear you on the thick walls, my cell does not like Costco

 

[xlxo]

I added the Wind US Roaming package for $15. Wind partners with AT&T and T-Mobile, so you bounce back and forth depending on what carrier has the strongest signal.

I agree... being able to toggle between carriers is a great option for Wind. It's strange that Wind customers will get better coverage in the USA than Canada.

My only negative comment about Wind in the USA experience is the mobile hotspot. With the mobile hotspot... I need to LOGIN and Accept an agreement. The login page would not work with my blackberries. That Wind SIM and hotspot became a huge doorstop. It's a big reason I switched to Roam Mobility. This was a problem back in 2013. Not sure if this has changed.

 

[Sunshine25]

Roam - does anyone know if I forward my Canadian# to my US Roam #, will the call come through?