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I am going into the USA over the holidays for a week and have just unlocked my 9900. What is the best pre-paid service for a Blackberry down there? I am looking for something that will do me for 7 days and include voice and data. Don't want to spend a tonne but want to stay connected.
Depends on where you're going. MetroPCS, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile all have prepaid BB plans. Cricket also has no contract monthly plans.
TMobile and Simple Mobile are the GSM carriers in the US that offer prepaid BlackBerry Data.
I'm not sure if they still offer this but i think that T-mobile has a Blackberry prepaid plan.
Most of the carriers in the USA are CDMA carrier and they are not using sim cards but At&t and T-mobile are the biggest GSM carriers in the US, i suggest you to visit their website to get some info about thier prepaid sim cards which you can use with your unlocked Blackberry device.
You could call your carrier and see what an international plan for the US will cost you, might be cheaper than pre-paid if it's only for the week. I know I have such a plan for my BB at work, and the rates seemed somewhat reasonable, but then again, these could be enterprise rates...
I beleive that Verizon (and others) offer a prepaid Blackberry 3G - stop by a Best Buy center and buy one and you are good to go. Good Luck!
Verizon will not work for the OP if he wants to use his existing unlocked 9900 referenced in the first post.
It should work, but TMo uses a different frequency band for 3G. Data service will only be 2G.
Being realistic about it, setting up BIS on prepay for a week of vacation - and then getting it back onto the original network - is probably more trouble than it is worth. Unless the plan is to use data-intensive apps it is probably easier to run two phones, one on local prepay for voice calls, and the BB for data only, roaming on the Telus account.
This is what I would do if you plan a lot of voice
Telus roaming package will get you about $1/MB of data, and being a BlackBerry, if you avoid using streaming services you will be under $4/day EASILY I remained under $4 a day with 100's of emails and constant BBM ( thank you truncation)
Going the other way....going to the UK for a vacation early next year.....planning to use my BBerries on wifi, since I'm sure it will be available where I'll be. Not planning on any voice at all, only in case of extreme emergency.
Suggestions? Or would be simpler to unlock my 9930 and use a prepaid card? AT&T has told me that if I unlock my 9860 I will lose my unlimited data plan when I return to the states. Or I could just get an international roaming plan since I'll be using so little voice.
I travel internationally quite a bit, and take my ATT BB with me. Before you go, add the international data roaming, which is $25 for 50 MB, and then $10/10mb overage. As long as you are careful with your usage, you can get by pretty inexpensively. I just got back from 11 days in Asia, and I didn't even use more than the initial 50 mb. Just make sure that you close unneeded apps, turn off autoupdates for Facebook, Twitter, News, etc, and connect to wifi while in your hotel, and even turn off data while roaming during off hours. For instance, for me, due to the time change, most of the emails I received after business hours are not mission critical. So, at 7PM EST I would turn off data roaming on the phone. When I would get back to my hotel, i would connect via wifi and get all the spam, facebook updates, etc. Worked perfectly, and my bill is easily manageable. As for calls, you definitely need to get a second phone and run a prepaid card while there.