How to get international calling / data while in Europe

July 3, 2023 8:03 AM

How do we set up my daughter's phone to have international calling or at least data? Our provider does not provide international service for the phone she has.

Unfortunately we waited until the last minute, but my daughter is traveling with friends in Europe (specifically France, Spain, Italy) leaving tomorrow, for a month.

We use US Mobile as a family, and she has a line. Her phone is an Iphone X. The only international service that US Mobile offers is through an ESim, which the IPhone X can not handle.

I then looked around online at Best Buy, etc., for pre-paid SIM cards - not finding them in store (looks like one could order, but no time now).

So, where could one buy a SIM card that would provide a month of service while in those European countries? Should she just wait until she arrives and buy a SIM card there? Is there another option or solution I am mssing? Thanks for helping this flaky, non-techy family.

posted by RajahKing to Technology (10 answers total)

Hey have you seen my recent questions? Google eSim. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like it may be your solution for data, at least. With data she can call with whatsapp.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:05 AM on July 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

As long as her iPhone X is unlocked, the easiest will be for her to just buy a prepaid SIM card when she gets here. Since all of her destination countries are in the EU, the SIM card will work in all of them with no additional roaming costs.

If her phone's carrier-locked (i.e. it will only take SIMs from your provider), you'll have to get US Mobile to unlock it - or find her an unlocked phone that she can use for the duration of the trip.
posted by pendrift at 8:22 AM on July 3, 2023 [5 favorites]

I have Google Fi and it's great. For non-eSim phones you need a SIM kit. Check your nearest Best Buy - some have them in the store for $10. Note that Google Fi SIMs need to be activated while she is physically in the USA.

If you can't get Google Fi, then have her find an Orange store in Europe (they are everywhere) and buy an Orange Holiday SIM. I think there's a store at the Paris airport (CDG). They will ask to see her passport.
posted by dum spiro spero at 8:24 AM on July 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

I just had a bad experience with Google Fi, with the app not functioning correctly on my iphone, abysmal customer service, and very high cost for the amount of data I actually needed. YMMV if she needs an unlimited data plan, but for my modest, data-only needs when traveling, I prefer locally-purchased sims.
posted by jon1270 at 8:36 AM on July 3, 2023

I've dealt with this quite a lot over the years - you'll want to buy a SIM card from a local carrier, with a prepay plan of a week or two. You can often get them in the destination airport for exactly this purpose, usually costs something in the ballpark of 20-40 USD equivalent.

You can google around for 'sim card (x) airport' and find lots of help - here's one for Charles de Gaul Airport, for example. Also check their article on single-country vs international sims, and where to get em.
posted by FatherDagon at 8:43 AM on July 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

Another vote for the physical SIM card from Orange bought on arrival. I like the Orange Holiday plan, and purchased them recently at both CDG and MADrid, as well as the Madrid train station. It covers the whole EU - no need to get them for different countries. The larger newsagents and airport sundries shops usually carry them, but if there's a stand-alone Orange shop that's open, you'll often get more help and attention from them. It's possible she will have to show her passport, as some countries require that the SIMs are registered. The salesperson will handle that.

One item I now pack if I'm going to swap SIMs is a few inches of blue painter's tape. Use it to tape your US SIM to the card that the EU SIM comes on when you swap. Then tape that all up and put it somewhere safe while traveling. It's a bummer to lose your US SIM.
posted by cocoagirl at 9:14 AM on July 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Note that when she gets the Orange SIM card she will be issued a French phone number and won't have access to her US based phone number. She should not put the SIM card into the phone until landing. Once she has the Orange SIM card in the phone, and the phone is turned on, it will then connect to the nearest network and she'll get a text message telling her what her French phone number is. She can email that to you.

I recommend she brings a printout of important phone numbers, or verifies she can get them online.

With the Orange card, she'll be able to text and call for free in Europe, will have a limit of texting and calling internationally, and will have tons of data for web browsing. If her travel partners also have Orange cards (or European numbers), she can text or call them for free. If not, the texts/calls will go against the limited amount dictated by the card.

But it only works if she has an unlocked phone, so you need to verify that first.
posted by happy_cat at 10:09 AM on July 3, 2023

Question from another new user: if you pop an Orange SIM into your iPhone while on vacation in Europe, can you just access all your Apple-cloud things (iMessages, emails, etc.) as you would while using your phone at home in America?
posted by wenestvedt at 12:20 PM on July 3, 2023

Double-check her phone is unlocked. We just got back from Europe, where we thought my daughter's phone was unlocked (it should have been unlocked) but it wasn't, and it was impossible, apparently, for either AT&T or Apple to unlock the phone without us taking the phone to an AT&T store (which was also not possible since there were no AT&T stores in Europe).

Then she can get a SIM card at the airport.
posted by leahwrenn at 1:02 PM on July 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Instead of going through all the SIM card stuff (which I've done multiple times) and especially having to worry about locked/unlocked and deal with the phone number change, you might just do a "pocket wifi" device. This is a small device that A) connects to the local data network and B) provides a wifi network that your phone can connect to. This effectively provides GOBS of internet data connectivity to your phone. The phone number itself may not work (for voice calls or texting) but internet apps will work -- that means Skype / Whatsapp / Threema / Snapchat / whatever they are using these days. And voice/text might actually work depending on the phone and provider (because it might use the extant internet service instead of the absent cell data service). It's what I'm planning to do on my next trip over. You can rent one there -- probably $$$ at the airport and $$ in the city proper.
posted by intermod at 8:28 AM on July 5, 2023