Yeah, must have been those “others” abusing the system while all you were doing was accessing free data in China, Iran and Iraq!
Seriously, though, great comment!
Seriously, though, great comment!
Seriously, what's the problem with that? That model had a basic web browser, so it was basically designed to be used this way. I used it in emergency situations (without taking the card out) for checking email and the like. It was slow and clumsy, but it worked. It would not occur to me that since I'm abroad I'm doing something wrong because the device was actually advertised as having global Internet connectivity, and it was one of the reasons I bought it.
If anything it's to be applauded that "global" really meant global, not just "yeah global as long as you're in USA, CA, UK, EU, AU, NZ." So many times my "global" MasterCard did not work in some whole country.
Nearly every country in the world has at least one mobile network that has a roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom. They have negotiated rates at high volumes in the cents/GB regardless of local pricing shenanigans.
DT is often the local cell providers gateway for international calling, so they have quite a bit of leverage.
I'd found it to be invaluable solving the after-landing-before-you-have-a-local-SIM conundrum.
It wasn't a Kindle, but another country's prepaid SIM that I continued using while in Japan. Phone companies in Japan don't do prepaid: only phone rentals by the day, or 2 year subscriptions. Neither of those were suitable for the 2 months I lived there.
Some international SIM cards would run out of balance and send an SMS as a warning. But others would redirect me to a topup page. Let's just say that wasn't the only page that was available, and the "send this page to a friend" email function is very convenient when Japanese phones have incoming email addresses for sending email-to-SMS.
Google calendar used to be a great way to get free email-to-RSS-to-SMS notifications, but that shut down a couple of years ago unfortunately.
Prepaid data (sans voice/SMS) have been easily accessible at reasonable prices for at least 6 years; they are now ubiquitous and can be bought at electronics stores, airports, and the occasional convenience store.
These days the 2y term requirement only applies when you get a plan with a subsidized smartphone or pocket wifi. Though you still need (IIRC) 6 month min on your stay for any subscription, so prepaid or rental is the only way if you stay for shorter. High-speed LTE data is cheap and available but SMS/voice is nigh impossible for non-long-term-residents (which is extra problematic given how practically everything/everyone in Japan assume you can provide a Japanese voice number they can call, and LINE does age verification through your mobile provider).
In case you ever go back: https://www.bmobile.ne.jp/english/
I've used this on several trips and it works well.
Unless of course you were living there more permanently, in which case the above is not useful.
With my current prepaid SIM, I typically top up $5 every 3 months. Between iMessage, WhatsApp/WeChat/KakaoTalk/Skype/Facebook, free incoming calls, and the occasional emergency SMS, I usually don't need a phone. People don't like it when I don't have a local number though.
That's cheaper than most plans in any country, let alone roaming.
Yes, I pay per minute for outgoing calls, or MB of usage - and those costs are high. That's why I try to use WiFi whenever possible, and use offline maps, offline Wikipedia, etc.