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581 posts

Ultimate Geek


Topic # 113745 26-Jan-2013 21:44 Send private message

I’ll be travelling to the US later this year and considering options for mobile voice and data.

I like the looks of the US$40 Simple Mobile plan  (buy SIM of TradeMe and activate prior to departure).  The drawback is that I’ll be taking an LG L7 which, I believe, does not support 1700MHz so it’d drop back to 2G Edge speeds.

Realistically how usable is this?  Intended use is a WiFi tethered (I kow that’s a bit of an oxymoron) netbook to use sites like TripAdvisor, hotel bookings,internet banking.  Things like Skype, photo uploads, etc. can wait until I get to a hotel/motel with a ‘high-speed’ connection.  Will 2G be good enough from what I’m trying to do or should I look for a different plan/provider that will support 3G or better for my phone.  (Reason for going with Simple is the ‘no cap’ which is appealing, all others I’ve found have data caps.)





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  Reply # 751320 26-Jan-2013 21:51 Send private message

EDGE on T-Mobile worked fine for me in the US




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581 posts

Ultimate Geek


  Reply # 751323 26-Jan-2013 21:56 Send private message

johnr: EDGE on T-Mobile worked fine for me in the US


Thanks John. Sounds encouraging, I believe Simple Mobile is an MVNO of T-Mobile.





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Wannabe Geek


  Reply # 753003 30-Jan-2013 02:53 Send private message

2degrees have EDGE if you want to test it out. I've not found it fast enough at all. You'll be dealing with dial-up speeds at best. T-Mobile US do have 1900mHz DC-HSPA+ coverage in some areas, but it doesn't look like the L7 supports that either.

Best bet is possibly to get a cheap portable hotspot which supports the required bands.



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Ultimate Geek


  Reply # 753318 30-Jan-2013 15:15 Send private message

Plan B is to go with redpocket who MVNO of the AT&T network who operate GSM 850/1900 and UMTS 850/1900.
Looking at the LG site for my phone specs, the L7 P705 reads:


GSM 850/900/1800/1900
UMTS 900/2100/GPRS Class 12/EDGE Class 12/HSDPA Speed 7.2 Mbps

Does this mean I would still be stuck with 2G performance on this netwrok as well? (Sorry I know very little about this stuff)

Portable hotspot is worth considering but I'm keen to have voice and text capability as well.






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  Reply # 753320 30-Jan-2013 15:23 Send private message

If you have push email and is not waiting for things to download, it's fine. If you think you're going to browse sites on your phone's browser, forget it.




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Master Geek


  Reply # 753321 30-Jan-2013 15:27 Send private message

onslaught86: 2degrees have EDGE if you want to test it out. I've not found it fast enough at all. You'll be dealing with dial-up speeds at best. T-Mobile US do have 1900mHz DC-HSPA+ coverage in some areas, but it doesn't look like the L7 supports that either.

Best bet is possibly to get a cheap portable hotspot which supports the required bands.


2degrees EDGE is less painfully slow than GPRS but shares the awful latency of GPRS.

We went to the US last year and used the walmart MVNO on t-mobile.  Which my 900/2100 phone never picked up 3G on.  EDGE was pretty slow but Google Navigation / Gmail / etc on my phone was usable.

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