This is a huge pain in many of the airports that I have travelled. In fact, you'll even get ripped off at some. For example Rome. We paid 50 euros for a supposedly Schengen wide 1GB plan but as soon as we left Italy that SIM was useless. So yeah, I'd definitely pay someone if they can just hand me a SIM at a nominal price as soon as I walk out of immigration/baggage claim

Singapore has done this in a great way. As soon as you take your bags and go out there are display boards for SIM purchases - quite quick as well. Super friendly staff.

EDIT: changed Europe to Schengen.

In Rome buying a sim is a total gamble -- many times they don't even work. I learned to buy the sim, then literally STAND in the same line and install it into my phone. (When I do this the staff at these stores start to get nervous.) If it doesn't work - I hand them back the sim and explain it doesn't work on my phone. They then take my receipt, type something into their computer, restart the phone and explain how it should work now. THEY NEVER check the phone to see if it works they know -- its related to something they are typing on their computer. ALSO, another trick they try is to explain it takes 24 hours. This is a total lie, it wont work after the 24 hours -- i usually just argue until they fix.

Are there people who take the SIM and leave? I always assume everyone stuck around until data was okay on the phone, since sometimes it needs activation, sometimes it needs settings, etc.

In Japan you can buy it at the convenient stores and the "mini" electronic store (haneda) at the airports. Switching sims, setting up the APNs, and the NO REFUND AFTER OPENED on the sticker make people buy it and jump on the bus or train to downtown tokyo (where you have 45mins ~ 1.5 hours to burn anyways).

Hmm, I see. Maybe that's why the ladies selling the SIMs at Haneda were a bit perplexed when I hung around to make sure that it worked.

Yeah, even if you buy a prepaid sim and it doesn't work on your device the store probably won't refund you (unless it's "cracked" or something when you open it).

I've had this happen in the US too. Verizon branded Android phone taken to a Verizon store to get a different sim, assured it would work and then had to walk out after 3+ attempts, calls, and fiddling on the computer.

Even in Singapore, the SIMs are sold at arrival are priced 30-50% above the retail rate and you will have to wait for data activation. I wish AirBnB hosts can offer pre-activated SIM as a value added service (Airport wifi is usually good enough to book an Uber).

Why do you even need to buy SIMs? Are international plans that pricey in the U.S.? Here in Europe they are quite affordable, my Czech 'connect for good for abroad' is $0.35 per MB which is enough in most situations.

The average web page size is now almost 3MB [1]. At that rate, it costs about a dollar to load a single web page and about $350 to download a gig of data. That's not affordable, especially when you can get the same service at a fraction of the cost by buying a local SIM. For instance, it costs $5 for 4GB of data in Cambodia. It would cost you $1,400.

[1] http://httparchive.org/interesting.php

We do have Google Fi, which is $20/mo + $0.01/MB. It works in 180+ countries with no need to swap out SIM cards. The main downside is the lack of phone choice...basically only the Google flagship phones (Pixel and Nexus...not the worst choices) because of something to do with the radio hardware they use.

For the casual traveler, it might not make the most sense, but for someone who does a lot of international travel, it's a great option.

This is much less of a pain since EU roaming charges ended on 15 June 2017.

"Roaming charges end on 15 June 2017. Europeans travelling within the EU countries will Roam Like at Home and pay domestic prices for roaming calls, SMS and data."

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/policies/roami...

Happily using my UK SIM and data plan while traveling through several EU countries.

> This is much less of a pain since EU roaming charges ended on 15 June 2017.

> Happily using my UK SIM and data plan while traveling through several EU countries.

The Brexit should fix that for you.

Israeli sims have free roaming in EU. No reason why the UK can't keep that.

Because, when British carriers get a chance to fleece their customers without pesky European regulators spoiling the party you can be damn sure that they'll jump on that opportunity in a heartbeat.

If you (or anyone else) has to travel to Japan I endorse https://www.rentafonejapan.com/ - they will have the phone or cell modem delivered to your hotel and you can drop it to the reception or in a mail delivery box on your way to the airport.

At either of the airports you can buy a sim card to use in your phone for internet (and use google voice for outgoing calls). They are sold at convenient stores (only the tourist ones like at the airport) and the electronic shops (the temporary sim cards are only sold at the tourist ones). Haneda airport has a bic camera mini.

Man, Japan is way ahead of the rest of the world, when it comes to certain aspects of convenience.

And way behind in others. Sims are way over priced. 1Gig is $30 vs say Singapore 7Gig for $20 or Turkey, 15Gig for $15

As another example even though > 40% of users don't have a landline more often than not you can not call a Japanese toll free number (0120) from a cellphone.

There's also the issue that unlike the USA where you can't tell from the phone number if it's a cellphone or a landline, in Japan you can. Cellphone numbers start with 070, 080, or 090 where as landlines start with different prefixes. Because of this you're judged based on your number. A person or company without a landline is judged to be less trust worthy than one with. Oh, and landlines require $700 to start (though that may have been finally fixed)

...and way behind in others. Try finding a pre-paid voice & data SIM in Japan (hint: it doesn't exist due to arcane regulations - non-residents can only get data-only SIMs). Most WiFi spots require registration that require you to confirm identity via a verification email (think chicken and egg).

I hope not to drag this conversation too much down the rabbit hole, but do you have any advise about what and where to get when it comes to a data SIM, which works on a GSM phone in Japan? Validity: ca. 1 month.

I used a pocket wifi from Sakura Mobile when I was Japan - https://www.sakuramobile.jp/

They delivered it to my hotel and it was easy to set things up.

Basically the same (except I used Rentaphone, as mentioned above).

+1, that would be great. Usually it's pretty easy to pick one up in the airport, but I would certainly pay a little extra if I didn't have to think about it.

T-mobile (Post-paid) has free international data and SMS... works in 100s of countries. No extra cost. This is the sole reason I am a customer.

The data is slow, but definitely good enough. It is good enough to use google hangouts to call phones back in the states.

T-mobile also routes though a Texas VPN when you're out of the country, which has its tradeoffs (super annoying latency, but no censorship in places like China).

This is the way that mobile data roaming works - the Internet egress point is your home carrier's, not the carrier on which you are roaming. Nothing special about T-Mobile here.

Great idea. I still haven't figured out a surefire way to do this for China travel.

Huh? They have a booth selling China mobile SIMs, but they might offer Unicom also (important if you have a GSM phone) inside customs, I believe it is 24 hours, for most international airports.

The SIM is pay as you go, you can refill it at most newspaper stands.

The problem generally isn't the SIM itself - it's the form factor. Granted I haven't traveled to China in two years now, but MicroSIM form factor was nonexistent there on my last trip. Many vendors used cheap, shitty handheld punches to get the excess plastic off of normal SIM cards to get them into SIM form factor. This worked about one time out of five - most of the time it just destroyed the SIM card.

We have an awesome offering at a good amount of China airports, we'd love to help! We're are also actively decreasing prices in China this month, so be on the look out :)

Or just use Google's Project Fi with no roaming charges (if you are from US).

From what I hear, Fi is by no means perfect, it's only available for a few phone models, and I'm not from the USA anyway.

What cell service is perfect? Fi is wonderful for a simple pricing structure and having service in 170+ countries as soon as you land. It allows me to use my phone in the few hours it takes from landing in a new country, to getting to my hotel, to getting to a cell provider to get a local SIM.

It is only officially supported on Nexus and Pixel phones, which are great devices. You can get around the limitation by doing some Googling as well if you insist on using a different device.

> What cell service is perfect?

"By no means perfect" doesn't mean "isn't perfect", it means "it's actually quite a long way away from being perfect".

I check in on the state of Fi every so often, and from what a lot of users are saying about it, it seems to be at best beta quality, and that's using the handful of officially supported devices. Perhaps in the countries you've been to with the device you use it's fine, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as reliable as picking up a local SIM.

Throw in the fact that it's not officially supported for most devices and that it's only available in the USA makes it a complete non-starter for me.

Also:

> if you insist on using a different device.

Having a device that Fi doesn't support isn't me being unreasonably stubborn like you seem to think. If Fi doesn't support the device that I use, that's Fi's shortcoming, not my own.

Maybe you missed the part where they said they are not from the US?

Once Google Fi is activated, it can work on iPhones and other devices. I use it all the time when traveling. Data-only SIM cards are free on Fi, (with no monthly recurring fee) so you can roam on multiple devices and only pay a very low fee ($10/gig) for what you use.

?? I thought Project FI had a min $20 a month basic rate. Looking at the site it certainly looks that way. Is there a way to have a Project FI account and no monthly fee if not used?

Yes, you can suspend it for up to 3 months: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6079346?hl=en

We definitely see the pain point here. It'd be great to be met by our agent and handed a SIM card or hotspot. Thanks for your feedback!

Why don't you switch to Project Fi? It's a network service from Google in USA which has coverage in lot of other countries internationally.

Disclaimer: I am just a happy Fi customer

+1 for Project Fi for international travel. Terrible for calls in the US, but great for international travel.

What about instead of a local SIM card, you're able to get a smartphone from the hotel you're checking in to and you can use it to hotspot your phone?

I don't want to carry around or keep charging an extra device.

What if it was free?

It's not that it's free, but having to carry around another device is a hassle.

Thanks makes sense.