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Travelling to US from Canada

JefferyShin

JefferyShin

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 20, 2009
152
0
Hello, I am going to NYC for a week in June, and I need to find a way to get mobile data while im there. Although my hotel will have wifi, I would like to get Internet on the go.

I own a 16gb wifi iPad, so no 3G there, and I own a 16gb iphone 3GS.

I checked the plans for the iphone for data roaming, and it is a crazy $1 per MB.

Are there any short term data plans available in the states?

Or do you have any suggestions?

Thank you!
 
I think you're out of luck. I believe all the iPhones (in Canada anyway) are locked to the carrier to get them from. Unless you jailbreak and unlock your iPhone before travelling, then you could just get a AT&T sim while you're there.
 
I can't speak for NYC, but I live in a much smaller american city and there is free wifi all over the place. Here is a website that actually lists locations where you can pick up free wifi in nyc- http://www.openwifinyc.com/
It's not as 'always on' as 3g would be as you have to go to the places that offer it, but if you're going to be oot and aboot anyway it probably wouldn't be so terrible.
 
HelveticaNeue said:
I think you're out of luck. I believe all the iPhones (in Canada anyway) are locked to the carrier to get them from. Unless you jailbreak and unlock your iPhone before travelling, then you could just get a AT&T sim while you're there.
Click to expand...

If I did unlock it, would I be able to get an ATT sim for cheap? And would the data be contract free so I only use it for a month?
 
JefferyShin said:
If I did unlock it, would I be able to get an ATT sim for cheap? And would the data be contract free so I only use it for a month?
Click to expand...

While I have never jailbroken or unlocked my iPhone, yes you should have no trouble signing up for a single month of service while there. There will be no contract because you own your own handset; the contracts are only for phones with hardware subsidies.

The SIM I think is $10 dollars, but I don't know if they charge any processing fees for account setup (I know Rogers here charges $35 processing). All in all, for one month of service you might be looking at $10(SIM) + $30(Processing Fee) +$75(voice+data plan) = $115 US. But I am kinda guessing.
 
Have you called your carrier? Roger's offers US/International plans for both voice and data, that you can add for a short period of time. They are still more expensive than a 'native' plan, but may be ok for you for the short term.
 
I'm not sure if you can still use a pre-paid AT&T sim with the iPhone. I remember reading reports a while ago that said they had blocked it or stopped it somehow. So I'm not entirely sure. This post probably doesn't help. My bad.
 
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