Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

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I actually am pretty happy with both my wired and wireless internet providers, although I know that makes me the odd man out. I have FiOS for the home connection, and they've been nothing but great. I have AT&T for wireless, and I'm fairly happy with them. It's not cheap, but for what I get it's not tremendously expensive either. I pay $130/month for two smartphones with 10GB of data and unlimited everything else, which isn't bad. They're actively discouraging the old contract system with subsidized phones, which was the source of a lot of trouble. I'll probably buy my next phone outright and they won't bat an eye.

I used to have Comcast and they were indeed awful. Terrible customer service, frequently clueless and unhelpful techs, and the service wasn't all that great either. Just trying to show that I'm not a complete corporate shill....

Anyway, I know that AT&T and Verizon aren't always liked either, but I think there's some substantial variation within the industry, even if maybe it's only between "awful" and "less bad".

$130/month for 10GB data is kind of a ripoff. Granted, it's only for one phone, but right now I pay 25 Euros (~$30) for unlimited calls and SMS and 5GB data per month (extendable for 10 Euros per 5 GB whenever I run out) in Germany. And that's expensive compared to other EU countries...

Agreed. I lived in Germany for about 9 months last year. I had cell service for about 15€/month. It really sucked to come back to the US and pay $100/month for worse service.

A lot of it is coverage. I could pay substantially less if I was willing to go with a worse network. How much would it cost you for a plan that covered all of Europe?

I don't think there's any kind of unlimited plan for the entire EU, not to mention other European countries.

I get 17 countries roaming included in my $30 a month plan, see my other post

With data? I haven't seen any plan that allows more than 100-200 MB of data (which is ridiculously low) on roaming without additional charges...

25gb roaming

Http://three.co.uk/

Ah, yes, EU-wide coverage is a problem - you need to get SIMs for every country you visit if you want the lowest rate.

Thankfully, prepaid SIMs with low data prices are very common everywhere, but it certainly would be convenient if you could use one everywhere.

As it is, calls and SMS on roaming are cheap, but data is still very expensive.

I pay $30 a month for 1000Gb of 4g. Unlimited texts, 60 mins calls (or I can swap unlimited calls for limited texts). I can internationally roam these 17 countries at no extra charge. (Up to 25Gb, 50k texts) :

Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Macau, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, United States

I can also tether without rooting, my phone acts as a wifi hotspot.

$30/month including in the US? How do I sign up?

Step 1, move to England

Http://three.co.uk/

Interesting. I wonder how they manage to pull that off. I see that they partner with T-Mobile and AT&T for the US. I don't imagine AT&T lets them access their network for so little money. I wonder what would happen if I got one of their SIM cards and then just used it full-time in the US. Would they cut me off as an abuser, or just eat the cost...?

The details page [1] does include this

> Feel At Home is designed for UK residents who are on holiday or business trips abroad, not for extended periods abroad.

And I just noticed this

> You can't use your phone as a personal hotspot (tethering) while you're abroad

http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home

There's always a catch! Still, that's quite a good deal if you live where they expect you to live. Good roaming while traveling abroad would be great to have. AT&T is definitely not good in that respect.

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