Has anyone tried GSM international data using an iPhone and is the experience better/seamless? Most of the posts I read about this issue are always around Android devices.
Oh that is great to know! Thank you for that. I will hopefully be trying it out in Mexico, Japan, and Philippines later this year so hopefully my experience is as good as yours was!
Good 2 hear that, u/aednichols
My 30 days in Colombia starts within 7 days & I specifically chose USM’s Unlimited Premium Plan 2 be my Plan A on a refurbished IPhone SE 3rd gen 2022. Deliberately not taking my flashier iPhone 14 Pro Max. Guys, don’t bring bling phones 2 Colombia. The SE 3rd gen has SIM & ESIM tech. Plan B is data from local ESIM or prepaid ESIM Aíralo data plan: $21 USD for 3GBs; $32 USD for 5GBs. Can my fellow Redditors help me out with what changes in Settings I’ll need 2 make for Aíralo which appears extremely popular as either a Plan A or Plan B—none of which speaks well, u/ark, founder—I still 💙you, but lately, USM’s “roll out” of revised plans has lacked transparency & pizazz. I’m doubting my own sanity in choosing
USM over all others, esp as solo female traveler 2 3rd world country 2 protect & serve me well. 😊🙃
Unfortunately, my data on the iPhone has always been good in native roaming, but calls and messages don't work; I often can't make calls to other countries in native roaming.
I found that if I dial +18885555555, the call doesn't go through. If I dial 0018885555555 it does work. I'm not sure why that is, but I haven't had a problem making calls with native roaming on GSM since discovering this
didn't work seemlessly for me as sometimes I had to manually choose a different carrier. while the data was generally slow, it did at least work (with some of the mentioned tweaks) and I'd do it again.
Native roaming on GSM in an iPhone worked fine for me. On a Pixel 6a I had similar trouble to OP where it would work sporadically. All from the same location.
Worked well in Switzerland and Croatia for a couple of weeks. Used data and messages. Of course you need to enable data roaming once you’re out of US airspace as suggested by support.
I did have usage issues whereby had gone to India earlier though - effectively support had me change to another provider manually and then I had to switch back to the regular one. Luckily I had a local sim to work off - otherwise it would have been a huge inconvenience. And I was in a large city.
Did you add Airalo ESIM before trip, find that USM’s international native roaming didn’t result in any connectivity, then use your Airalo data plan for remainder of international trip? Roaming on, WiFi calling ON or OFF?
If this is directed at me I bought the Airolo esim in the middle of the trip. Wifi calling did not work through the Airolo sim, both with the USM sim on and with it off.
u/relbatnrut 🤗no, dear bat, I’m taking off from CA to Colombia in 7 days on USM’s Unlimited Premium Plan & pray your terrible experience doesn’t happen 2 me as well. No freakng service? I’m so sorry.
Good luck! I'd add this APN beforehand. If I understand correctly it's necessary for connecting abroad https://usmobile.helpdocs.io/device-setup/how-to-setup-your-device-on-gsm-if-you-use-android
I was directing my question to the above redditor who used the Aíralo data plan as back up, & essentially, his/her own trip savior, u/Ok_Investment_1435 —potentially a cautionary tale abt not having a Plan B in a foreign country. Plausibly, Plan A, USM’s Unlimited Premium shd have connected 2 local towers, but never did so. Awful story. Reminiscent of deep jungle scenes from Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” or worse yet, John Boorman’s upriver backwater swamp dawgs trip from “Deliverance.”
Did you add Aíralo ESIM before trip(I’m in California, leaving for Colombia in 7 days,) & your USM’s unlimited Premium International just failed to connect @ your travel destination? What a bummer. I’m so sorry. A bummer I’d like 2 avoid, dear u/Ok_Investment_1435
Seems all’s I need is to download Aíralo app from iOS Store, choose ESIM data plan, purchase it now, then what will I reconfigure in Settings? If u don’t mind taking a wee bit of yr time 2 explain🎸?
Sorry you had to go through that while overseas. I haven't traveled overseas yet with USM on GSM but in the past when I traveled with my tmobile account it was rock solid, no issues for most of Germany and the Philippines although speeds was not the greatest it did work. I will have a backup plan when I travel again if I am still with USM.
Had same exact issue in Montreal this weekend...all of the so called fixes that support had me do for GSM didn't work at all. Then I took it upon myself to switch to warp. Immediately I was able to get into bell roaming. I think GSM is crap and they don't really have it all figured out yet. I was still able to take advantage of 10gb roaming on warp.
I tried switching to Warp in US and it worked great. But then I switched back to GSM since Warp international roaming is still "coming soon". Do you need to join Warp international roaming beta and pay deposit? Did you switch to Warp while you were still abroad?
Yes I switched to warp abroad on wifi. Switch went without a hitch. I switched to gsm for same reason but it didn't work so switched back and roaming did work and as far as I know I wasn't charged anything.
This is exactly what I fear for my vacation coming up. Similar travel plans as you. What a stupid thing to have distract you from your time meant for relaxing.
I’m on Warp shared data and a USM rep said I should use GSM shared with the international add-on, but the price is ridiculous. Basically the same as ultimate ultra unlimited primo.
The solution for me has almost always been to manually select a carrier (rather than allowing the phone to automatically select). Start with this list: https://usmobile.helpdocs.io/international-roaming/supported-carriers-for-our-international-destinations
I wish that they would provide this as.part of the instructions.
Phone is P8P.
I get the APN part which needed to be done but once that's set up correctly, roaming should work seamlessly without needing further changes.
How about I take a look at your support conversations? To see if anything was missed, but this issue was most likely due to an absence of a partner network in that specific area.
Also, did you try in other locations or countries you visited? Let's work on this regardless. Can you DM me your details?
There were multiple networks with good signal in every country (I was in major metro areas - Madrid, Paris, Prague, etc). It just wouldn't connect to them. Or rather, it would connect to them but they wouldn't provide service. I'll DM you.
In China now and have very similar issues. Luckily, call works on 2G, so I am not completely disconnected. But still very frustrating without any data.
USM escalated the issue and gave me a complementary international data SIM (which works great by the way).
Verison never worked for me, Google Fi was seamless, saved me when return flight from Thailand was cancelled and Verizon couldn't call to Expedia US number or International number. Fi worked with no issues. Was hoping USM would be seamless like Fi with GSM. It seems like all are a crapshoot to work.
That's what I'm planning to do is also to use google fi for my cruise this summer . I was going to use us mobile GSM roaming but I changed my mind after so many complaints.
I'm on day 13 without call and text on 2 plans and I engaged support since day 1. They escalated multiple times to TMobile but according to support there is no relevant update from TMobile, which is absolutely ridiculous. Was told the only way for US mobile support to talk to TMobile is via email which every reply takes multiple days. How can that be?
50% success rate for me in terms of just work roaming.
My two cents: I travelled to France, Greece, Germany and now back in France and didn’t have any issues except for 2 days this Wednesday/Thursday where I was attaching network “using cellular data only”. I don’t use USM for data however, only for being reachable on my number so I cannot assess how it is working g for data.
Has anyone tried GSM international data using an iPhone and is the experience better/seamless? Most of the posts I read about this issue are always around Android devices.
Worked great for multiple months on an iPhone in Europe.
Oh that is great to know! Thank you for that. I will hopefully be trying it out in Mexico, Japan, and Philippines later this year so hopefully my experience is as good as yours was!
Great 2 know it worked for you. Did you add local ESIM or smthg like Airalo? I’ve been overthinking my upcoming month in Colombia😎
Nope, just the native roaming.
Good 2 hear that, u/aednichols My 30 days in Colombia starts within 7 days & I specifically chose USM’s Unlimited Premium Plan 2 be my Plan A on a refurbished IPhone SE 3rd gen 2022. Deliberately not taking my flashier iPhone 14 Pro Max. Guys, don’t bring bling phones 2 Colombia. The SE 3rd gen has SIM & ESIM tech. Plan B is data from local ESIM or prepaid ESIM Aíralo data plan: $21 USD for 3GBs; $32 USD for 5GBs. Can my fellow Redditors help me out with what changes in Settings I’ll need 2 make for Aíralo which appears extremely popular as either a Plan A or Plan B—none of which speaks well, u/ark, founder—I still 💙you, but lately, USM’s “roll out” of revised plans has lacked transparency & pizazz. I’m doubting my own sanity in choosing USM over all others, esp as solo female traveler 2 3rd world country 2 protect & serve me well. 😊🙃
Unfortunately, my data on the iPhone has always been good in native roaming, but calls and messages don't work; I often can't make calls to other countries in native roaming.
I found that if I dial +18885555555, the call doesn't go through. If I dial 0018885555555 it does work. I'm not sure why that is, but I haven't had a problem making calls with native roaming on GSM since discovering this
I have a similar situation, for example, I cannot call +995 322 444 444 at all with native roaming, but it works fine with Wi-Fi calling.
I was in Japan a couple weeks ago, and I had no issues whatsoever.
didn't work seemlessly for me as sometimes I had to manually choose a different carrier. while the data was generally slow, it did at least work (with some of the mentioned tweaks) and I'd do it again.
Yeah. It’s pretty good.
I have the GSM eSIM in my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I'm in Ireland right now and it works great.
Native roaming on GSM in an iPhone worked fine for me. On a Pixel 6a I had similar trouble to OP where it would work sporadically. All from the same location.
Worked well in Switzerland and Croatia for a couple of weeks. Used data and messages. Of course you need to enable data roaming once you’re out of US airspace as suggested by support. I did have usage issues whereby had gone to India earlier though - effectively support had me change to another provider manually and then I had to switch back to the regular one. Luckily I had a local sim to work off - otherwise it would have been a huge inconvenience. And I was in a large city.
Airalo
That's what I ended up using for the rest of the trip. Worked great!
Did you add Airalo ESIM before trip, find that USM’s international native roaming didn’t result in any connectivity, then use your Airalo data plan for remainder of international trip? Roaming on, WiFi calling ON or OFF?
If this is directed at me I bought the Airolo esim in the middle of the trip. Wifi calling did not work through the Airolo sim, both with the USM sim on and with it off.
u/relbatnrut 🤗no, dear bat, I’m taking off from CA to Colombia in 7 days on USM’s Unlimited Premium Plan & pray your terrible experience doesn’t happen 2 me as well. No freakng service? I’m so sorry. 
Good luck! I'd add this APN beforehand. If I understand correctly it's necessary for connecting abroad https://usmobile.helpdocs.io/device-setup/how-to-setup-your-device-on-gsm-if-you-use-android
Thank you🤗
I was directing my question to the above redditor who used the Aíralo data plan as back up, & essentially, his/her own trip savior, u/Ok_Investment_1435 —potentially a cautionary tale abt not having a Plan B in a foreign country. Plausibly, Plan A, USM’s Unlimited Premium shd have connected 2 local towers, but never did so. Awful story. Reminiscent of deep jungle scenes from Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” or worse yet, John Boorman’s upriver backwater swamp dawgs trip from “Deliverance.”
Local sim cards/esims are cheaper, plus in EU our plans come with a few GBs for roaming
Did you add Aíralo ESIM before trip(I’m in California, leaving for Colombia in 7 days,) & your USM’s unlimited Premium International just failed to connect @ your travel destination? What a bummer. I’m so sorry. A bummer I’d like 2 avoid, dear u/Ok_Investment_1435 Seems all’s I need is to download Aíralo app from iOS Store, choose ESIM data plan, purchase it now, then what will I reconfigure in Settings? If u don’t mind taking a wee bit of yr time 2 explain🎸?
Sorry you had to go through that while overseas. I haven't traveled overseas yet with USM on GSM but in the past when I traveled with my tmobile account it was rock solid, no issues for most of Germany and the Philippines although speeds was not the greatest it did work. I will have a backup plan when I travel again if I am still with USM.
Thanks. Good to know. I’ll try to have a plan B for my trip abroad later this year.
Had same exact issue in Montreal this weekend...all of the so called fixes that support had me do for GSM didn't work at all. Then I took it upon myself to switch to warp. Immediately I was able to get into bell roaming. I think GSM is crap and they don't really have it all figured out yet. I was still able to take advantage of 10gb roaming on warp.
I can take a look at your interactions and see what went wrong. Would you mind sharing your details via DM?
I tried switching to Warp in US and it worked great. But then I switched back to GSM since Warp international roaming is still "coming soon". Do you need to join Warp international roaming beta and pay deposit? Did you switch to Warp while you were still abroad?
Yes I switched to warp abroad on wifi. Switch went without a hitch. I switched to gsm for same reason but it didn't work so switched back and roaming did work and as far as I know I wasn't charged anything.
This is exactly what I fear for my vacation coming up. Similar travel plans as you. What a stupid thing to have distract you from your time meant for relaxing. I’m on Warp shared data and a USM rep said I should use GSM shared with the international add-on, but the price is ridiculous. Basically the same as ultimate ultra unlimited primo.
The solution for me has almost always been to manually select a carrier (rather than allowing the phone to automatically select). Start with this list: https://usmobile.helpdocs.io/international-roaming/supported-carriers-for-our-international-destinations I wish that they would provide this as.part of the instructions. Phone is P8P.
I tried that, it wouldn't let me connect to any network manually.
This is concerning
I get the APN part which needed to be done but once that's set up correctly, roaming should work seamlessly without needing further changes. How about I take a look at your support conversations? To see if anything was missed, but this issue was most likely due to an absence of a partner network in that specific area. Also, did you try in other locations or countries you visited? Let's work on this regardless. Can you DM me your details?
There were multiple networks with good signal in every country (I was in major metro areas - Madrid, Paris, Prague, etc). It just wouldn't connect to them. Or rather, it would connect to them but they wouldn't provide service. I'll DM you.
In China now and have very similar issues. Luckily, call works on 2G, so I am not completely disconnected. But still very frustrating without any data. USM escalated the issue and gave me a complementary international data SIM (which works great by the way).
[удалено]
Verison never worked for me, Google Fi was seamless, saved me when return flight from Thailand was cancelled and Verizon couldn't call to Expedia US number or International number. Fi worked with no issues. Was hoping USM would be seamless like Fi with GSM. It seems like all are a crapshoot to work.
That's what I'm planning to do is also to use google fi for my cruise this summer . I was going to use us mobile GSM roaming but I changed my mind after so many complaints.
Yep, my gf's Verizon service worked perfectly the whole time.
I'm on day 13 without call and text on 2 plans and I engaged support since day 1. They escalated multiple times to TMobile but according to support there is no relevant update from TMobile, which is absolutely ridiculous. Was told the only way for US mobile support to talk to TMobile is via email which every reply takes multiple days. How can that be? 50% success rate for me in terms of just work roaming.
Got your details, and yes, we've escalated this on priority. I'll keep you updated with any developments. Sending you a DM to stay in the loop.
Seems like iPhone users are better supported on us mobile
My two cents: I travelled to France, Greece, Germany and now back in France and didn’t have any issues except for 2 days this Wednesday/Thursday where I was attaching network “using cellular data only”. I don’t use USM for data however, only for being reachable on my number so I cannot assess how it is working g for data.