Roaming in the USA

[Salem874]

Is anyone familiar with roaming in the USA on an O2 SIM?

What's coverage like (which networks are used), and particularly data speeds?

I have the O2 Travel "bolt on" which does include data for a £5/day charge. Is this throttled? All information I find seems to suggest this data is "unlimited" which I find hard to believe, it must be throttled somehow. And would any data used as part of O2 travel (with the associated £5/day charge on the days any services are used) be taken from any allowance you have in the UK? How does it work exactly?

I'm heading over for about two weeks next week, so would be interested in knowing more as O2 travel didn't cover outside Europe the last time I was abroad.

[iphone4sir]

So I’ve tried various networks but stuck with AT&T for the majority of the trip and whilst I’ve been connected on “4g” the whole trip the speed tests are revealing only 0.5 plus - almost the same results we had pre the European moans - so it’s like 4g only in vision not in reality - using the 4.99 a day I’ve managed to use about 800 mb of data 😕

[MI5]

Anywhere there is “unlimited” data will yield the same data speeds.
It should be full network speed in the EU though.

[Salem874]

An update on my experience following amy US travels...

I had no problem with Data while in the USA (Madison and Dallas areas). My O2 mobile latched on to AT&T and T-Mobile US, and >90% of the time indicated 4G (i guess O2 may now have some 4G agreements? Or is this the whole issue of some US networks mislabelling 3G as 4G unlike the UK where we label true LTE as 4G).

While i'm almost certain the data speed was throttled to below 4G speeds (and some services were completely blocked, for example i couldn't even open Spotify to add a friend - not stream - while not on Wi-Fi) it was certainly useable.

Over the 10 days in the USA, i used around 1.68GB of roaming data (my highest use in a single day reaching 477 MB)

So overall, i cant complain at all.

[MI5]

Good update. Thanks.

[Cleoriff]

Thanks for that info @Salem874

[jonsie]

That certainly helps when advising people and you certainly used a good amount. Thanks so much for the informative update

[Salem874]

Thanks all

To be honest, i actually didnt realise just how much data i had used. I was shocked when i went checked! Interestingly, this was after i'd disabled mobile data on a bunch of (what i considered) non-essential apps.

I did try running a speed test as well to confirm what speeds i was getting, but unfortunately that too was blocked, which i dont have any issues with really, as it the most important thing was the data i needed worked. In fact, using mobile data was often better/faster than making a mobile call (calls would take close 30-60s to connect)!

So, all-in-all, I'm happy and pleased with the service. Much better than i expected.

[GJD]

Just wondering if you did the USA roaming as part of "O2 Inclusive Travel Zone", i.e. the new "unlimited" data in the USA and some other non-European countries for no extra cost (available with some Pay Monthly tariffs)?

I had looked at my out-of-contract £21.34 a month for 20GB data tariff and O2 chat said they couldn't add the travel zone onto it, and that it's only available with newer tariffs. Currently there is a £20 for 20GB (unlimited calls and texts) offer available so I just signed up to that for another 12 months and got a £1.34 discount (!) on what I'm paying now.

Last summer when I went to the USA I used a Three PAYG SIM in my old phone and had my normal phone in flight mode. That was when they still allowed you to use TuGo, which is a bit of a loss. But if I can now text via my normal phone in the US that's no problem.

So yes, bit of waffle, sorry. Sounds like you had adequate data provision while you were there (unlike in Germany where I was last summer with a dead-brick phone as far as roaming on an O2 contract was concerned! I was in Germany again in November where it had improved vastly, and also in France, Ireland and Spain).

PS Does anyone know if the daily 120 minute allowance includes e.g. calls within the USA if you are roaming in the USA and/or calls back to the UK? I can't find this explained anywhere.