FWIW, T-Mobile in the US already has the exact same offering [1]. Their plan has free texts and 2g data in 120+ countries. Calls cost 20 cents per minute.
First off, I just want to say, the "free tier" of international data is extremely appreciated for two important reasons:
- Overage is literally impossible (i.e. no "bill shock").
- If you don't wish to pay, you get "something" for nothing.
So, now, the "bad." The reality is that T-Mobile's free tier is incredibly slow like "my 56K modem was faster than this" slow. A single modern web-site can literally take so long to load that my phone would fall asleep and then cut off the connection (meaning I'd have to start all over).
It is really only useful for push notifications and to check your email if you're really patient. Even for reading sites like Reddit, it would drive you up the wall. Looking at images (e.g. imgur) is a no-go and YouTube is definitely not even plausible.
Now, if you pay, you get more data per dollar than you do on most other big US networks and you legitimately get 4G speeds in many places (at least I certainly did). So if you pay you wouldn't even know you were abroad. And when you run out of paid data, you drop down to the slow speed again rather than being cut off (which is nice, so you feel safe to use 100% of your paid data with no risk).
So, to me, T-Mobile's free tier doesn't really change the formula for international travel. It just solves overage/bill shock and gives you some basic notifications and maybe email. Those aren't things to be sniffed at, they're legitimately nice, but people should manage their expectations.
PS - Protip: Restart your phone every single time you change countries. My phone got "confused" and would refuse to connect until I restarted. We did a cruise so a new country was daily, and I missed a day of data because I thought that country simply wasn't supported (rather than it being a phone problem).
In the end, we paid $40 (all for calls @ $0.20/min) for 3 weeks of near-normal usage with 2 iPhones.
To me that's very much a game changer - previously I paid double that same amount as an accidentally access charge (forgot to turn off roaming on my AT&T phone). Not to mention I had to spend 30m with the AT&T rep to configure our accounts so we wouldn't get charged $2/min prior to our trip.
It was this cruise but in reverse (Aruba last, cayman first):
Ports: Ft. Lauderdale, Florida | Aruba | Cartagena, Colombia | Panama Canal, Panama (Gatun Lake) | Colon, Panama | Limon, Costa Rica | Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands | Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
When I paid for data I got good 3G or 4G speeds. With free data it was incredibly slow, like sub-56K modem slow, even at the same ports as the 4G speeds with paid.
Here's a YouTube video someone else took which accurately represents my experience:
https://youtu.be/PISKCPFu3iU?t=26s
It takes a minute to load Gizmoto's homepage.
What's your experience with Google Maps at the free 2G speeds? That would be my first question when it comes to travel.
"Unpleasant." What I'd strongly recommend is to download the map using offline maps before you leave. If you wait for Google Maps to download the data over the 2G/free tier you'll be in for a very long (10+ minute) wait.
I did not do offline maps before I left, but mostly we were on tours so we didn't really need them. But if I was e.g. exploring a city or doing something on my own, you'd definitely want to do offline maps if you wanted to use Google Maps on their free tier.
It's a long list, but there's some notable / surprising absences (e.g. Brazil, Spain).
I was very satisfied and would gladly use them again. Having transit directions made spontaneous travel much easier.
Anyway, I'll be damn glad if an alternative appears as it'll give me an additional chance to qualify.
It seems like UK carriers are lagging behind rather badly in this regard.
http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home
It's not as many countries, but with 3 you can get unlimited data at a fraction of the cost (I currently pay £15/month with 3 for unlimited data, 5000 3 to 3 minutes, 5000 texts and 2000 minutes to other networks).
nevertheless, they also have an option to upgrade to 3G data for a fee ($10 or so).