<p>Alright, international boarding students/parents of boarding students. How did you buy your phone? What plan? What carrier? And how do you pay for the services?</p>
<p>And no, I will not be using a tracphone, this is 2013 ffs</p>
<p>Some carriers have better reception in certain rural regions-- would not be a bad idea to ask the students at the school which carrier they use.</p>
<p>If you have an unlocked phone, you can use a Sim card from any carrier. Pre-paid plans cost around ~USD 50/month for unlimited calls+text+data, but I’m not sure whether you can make int’l voice calls using pre-paid. Annual-contract plans are available which offer more int’l options.</p>
<p>Try Googling these carriers: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile to get the details of their plans. I signed a contract for S’s cellphone plan, which I can pay online from overseas.</p>
<p>If you want to acquire a new phone through the carrier, the phone will always be locked. The carriers offer generous discounts on new phones, on the condition that you commit to signing a 1-2 year contract for service. </p>
<p>Using your U.S. cellphone service outside of U.S./Canada is a SHOCKING RIP-OFF. One single school break traveling home added HUNDREDS of dollars to S’s bill that month. Therefore, I recommend switching to your home country’s SIM card (of course you need an unlocked phone to do this) once you travel outside the U.S./Canada.</p>
<p>I’m very techy so I know about all the things that you said. Thanks for the reply though.</p>
<p>What data plan and carrier is your S on? Isn’t it a bit more expensive if you are on att or verizon? especially if you are paying from overseas of course.</p>
<p>I liked the price of the T-Mobile pre-paid, but S complained of poor signal at his school location. I switched to an AT&T U.S. contract and hate what a rip-off they are, but S no longer complains of dropped calls. Where you pay from doesn’t affect cost. What affects that cost is where you CALL/TEXT/SURF from. Did I mention to you I hate paying the AT&T bill? </p>
<p>Like I said before, talk to the people at the school. Maybe T-Mobile is fine there.</p>
<p>Did I mention to you I hate paying the AT&T bill? Grrr @#$%%^&@#!!!</p>
<p>I’m using T-Mobile and I advise against it. Signal is poor. Get Horizon or AT&T.</p>
<p>How much are you guys paying per month for your smartphones? I am an international using Verizon and with unlimited texts, the basic 2GB of data, the mininum mins of voice, I pay around $110 per month. I feel like this is a lot.</p>
<p>Wow, I’m paying only $30 per month 100mb 1500 mins text/call.</p>
<p>I’m a big data user so I was thinking about getting the 30 dollar prepaid Tmobile plan with an unlocked iPhone.</p>
<p>I am an international with an iPhone and my parents are stubbornly against me having data because they fear I will get too distracted and carried away with unlimited internet… so very unfortunately for me, I have a T-Mobile (agree with previous posts, signal does suck) $100 for 1000 minutes SIM card, which I just add money to when I run out, no set $/month fee and no contract.</p>
<p>DS is back home overseas for Spring Break and thought the AT&T int’l txt msg service was 50 txts PER DAY, instead of 50 txts per month. I am dreading this month’s bill…</p>
<p>@GMTplus7; I wish you the best of luck with that! Hope you’re enjoying your spring break with your son and it’s nice to bump into you on CC again :)</p>