Back in November, Verizon Wireless (VZW) announced new international roaming packages that are now quite competitive with SIM and international cell rental companies. Assuming you have a 4G LTE enabled world phone (i.e. not a CDMA phone), roaming in Canada or Mexico, you’ll only pay $2/day which will allow you to use your minutes/texts/data as you would from your regular plan and $10/day in nearly every other country in the world (although not all) also using your regular plan’s minutes/texts/data.
This is a big deal.
While this may come out slightly more expensive than renting a cell or SIM for travel to Israel or elsewhere, it surely is the most convenient (for VZW customers at least). Additionally, you’re only charged when using the service, so if you’re phone is off for Shabbat, that’s money saved.
Looking at AT&T’s International roaming packages as a comparison, it’s impossible to decipher whether or not it is a good deal. Their plans are unnecessarily complex for consumers:
This could easily be cheaper than Verizon’s package or 10x the price. Who knows? One can’t predict this. Also, if I know I’m getting billed per MB of data I’m using, I will not enjoy myself whilst traveling. Sorry AT&T, your plans suck.
Now if you want to do the research on specific phone or SIM rental plans for Israel, which are likely a little cheaper than Verizon’s packages, read our guide here.
Note: This was not a sponsored post, but merely a helpful article to consumers.
Hi,
Verizon is not a global provider, you should not be using Verizon if you plan to communicate with people outside of the US. It doesn’t matter which of their package you buy, simply they don’t have the coverage.
Verizon didn’t even manage to cover the European Union.
Take a look at this link, it shows that a Verizon customer cannot be texted from or can text to numbers in the Czech Republic, Croatia or Hungary and those are EU countries!!!
https://ss7.vzw.com/is/content/VerizonWireless/available-international-travel-services.pdf