<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">For travel abroad, I like using Gigsky - it’s an e-SIM that you add to your (unlocked) phone without changing carrier. It’s data only, but very cost effective (e.g. a single country in Europe is $11 for 3GB over 15 days). For voice calls you can use WhatsApp or Google Voice and it uses the data plan instead of voice. You’ll still receive calls and texts on your regular number. <div><br></div><div><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage"><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On May 9, 2024, at 09:00, Steve Isenberg via LCTG <lctg@lists.toku.us> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><div dir="auto">We also have Consumer Cellular. The cost is under $51 a month total for two phones: all the texting and voice that we want, 5 gig per month. If we’re going to use less than 5gig we can change to a cheaper plan at any time. They offer 5G also, I don’t know of any cap. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">We make calls to Switzerland and we use Google voice for this, at a cost of two cents per minute.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I believe our home phone, Verizon FiOS, lets us pick one country that we can call for maybe 60 minutes a month for no added charge; we obviously chose Switzerland.</div><div dir="auto">We haven’t used hotspot, although I suspect Consumer Cellular supports it. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Consumer Cellular uses both AT&T and the T-Mobile networks. We were able to request which network we wanted, and decided that one of us would be AT&T and the other would be T-Mobile, in case one network didn’t work the other would still have phone access. In our experience, we haven’t seen any noticeable difference between the two services given the places that we go. </div><div dir="auto">-steve </div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, May 9, 2024 at 06:33 Mitchell I. Wolfe via LCTG <<a href="mailto:lctg@lists.toku.us">lctg@lists.toku.us</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204)"><div style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">To Drew:</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Good find! When Visible was first announced about five years ago, I don't think they offered international roaming.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">I'm currently on Consumer Cellular which does not really offer international roaming while my wife is on a more costly Verizon plan that does.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">We may reconsider...</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">-- Mitch</p></div><div style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><p id="m_-8922099551926580547reply-intro" style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">On 2024-05-08 23:00, Drew King via LCTG wrote:</p>
</div><div style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><blockquote type="cite" style="padding:0px 0.4em;border-left-width:2px;border-left-style:solid;margin:0px;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;border-left-color:rgb(16,16,255)"></blockquote></div><div style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><blockquote type="cite" style="padding:0px 0.4em;border-left-width:2px;border-left-style:solid;margin:0px;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;border-left-color:rgb(16,16,255)">
<div id="m_-8922099551926580547replybody1" style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">
<div style="padding-bottom:1px;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:large;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">All,</span></p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:large;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">A follow-up to the discussion we had prior to the meeting this morning:<br></span></p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:large;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">International service IS available. They support 140 countries!</span></p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Prior to the meeting, someone was interested in international travel rates, and it turns out that if you're on the Premium plan you have access to a global Service that includes 140 countries and the rate is $10 per day. You can read about all the details on their website. </p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:large;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><a href="https://www.visible.com/globalpass" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">https://www.visible.com/globalpass</a><br></span></p><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:large;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:large;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span id="cid:ii_18f5d6420fc9cf735121"><f0TbQfWnECrmEWNr.png></span><br></span></p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Old carrier: Verizon.<br>New carrier: Visible. (A subsidiary of Verizon)</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">I was paying approximately $85/month. This came with 2 or 3 GB data/month.<br>Using with a Samsung Galaxy S5 phone that was older, and I had no incentives or offers from Verizon to get a discount on a new phone.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">My new starting service rate at Visible when the plan was bundled with the financing was $37 all in.</span></p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">I paid full price for the phone, and my monthly payment went from $85 with Verizon to $37 with Visible. And, my monthly allotment of data went from<span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,0)"> 3 GB to unlimited.</span> </p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">If you have a qualifying phone, you can bring it to Visible.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">A friend of mine from college told me about his plan with Visible. At the time the company was offering a party plan and the more people you had in your party the better your discount. I joined his party with my own account and got started with a monthly fee of $25 All In. No additional fees. </p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">The basic plan is now $25 for everyone.</span></p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">It looks like they bumped the premium plan to $45. I'm still paying $35.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">If you wish, you can pay annually, and save. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">The monthly rate averages about $32.</span></p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">It had unlimited calling and text.<br>Unlimited data.<br>Unlimited hotspot capped to make it pretty slow.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">I have since upgraded to their Premium plan, which is $35 per month. Actually, I just checked out their website, and it looks like it went up to $45, and I'm probably grandfathered in to the $35 rate.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><br>This includes access to Verizon's higher speed 5G networking that makes the phone operate faster, and I have a program that I use that spoofs the hotspot into working pretty close to full speed. I just got 85 MB down and 10 MB up, which is pretty slow for when I test it. Sometimes I can get 300 MB down or more.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">With the $25 a month plan, I had difficulty streaming live video.<br>The $35 per month plan does not have this problem.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">I purchased a new Samsung Galaxy S21 and financed it for 24 months through their financing company. I'm not sure if they still offer it but at the time they had a midpoint upgrade plan if you wanted to up in and what that did for you is allow you to upgrade after one year to the newer model phone, and they take your old phone back and pay off the remaining balance of your old phone. This way, if you want, you can always have every year a brand-new phone. It's like leasing a car you always have a payment, and you never own it.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">My phone is now several Generations back and paid off.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">They only offer one form of communication for sales and technical support and that is a chat session either through their mobile app or website. There are no phone numbers to call and talk to a human being. In three plus years, I have not found this to be a problem.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">On the day that I signed up and purchased the new phone, they sent me in the mail overnight delivery the brand-new phone along with a Sim chip that I needed to install. I Then followed the default Samsung process to migrate from my old phone to my new phone. Samsung provides with all of their Galaxy phones a really nice built-in upgrade tool that moves pretty much everything on your old phone to your new phone and even creates folders with apps in them.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">My phone is stock Samsung with no extra carrier software.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">I contacted Verizon and got a release code for my service that I provided to visible and after my new phone was configured I ran their app and told it I was ready and about 45 minutes later my new phone was active and the old phone was deactivated.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Verizon sent me a prorated bill for the month that ended on the day that the service got transferred to visible.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">They have a referral program, so if any of you decide to enroll, I can give you a code that will give both of us a discount for one month.</span></p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Visible supports the Apple Watch with LTE, unfortunately I can't say the same for the Samsung watch that I own.</p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">If you go to their website, <a href="https://visible.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">https://visible.com</a> you can check out everything and for those of you who are curious about international service you can read about the differences between the two plans. </p><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><br></p><div style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:large;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:large;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Drew.<br></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</blockquote></div><div style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><blockquote type="cite" style="padding:0px 0.4em;border-left-width:2px;border-left-style:solid;margin:0px;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;border-left-color:rgb(16,16,255)"><div style="margin:0px;padding:0px;font-family:monospace"></div></blockquote></div><div style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><blockquote type="cite" style="padding:0px 0.4em;border-left-width:2px;border-left-style:solid;margin:0px;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;border-left-color:rgb(16,16,255)"><div style="margin:0px;padding:0px;font-family:monospace">===============================================<br>::The Lexington Computer and Technology Group Mailing List::<br>Reply goes to sender only; Reply All to send to list.<br>Send to the list: <a href="mailto:LCTG@lists.toku.us" target="_blank" style="font-family:monospace">LCTG@lists.toku.us</a> Message archives: <a href="http://lists.toku.us/pipermail/lctg-toku.us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="font-family:monospace">http://lists.toku.us/pipermail/lctg-toku.us/</a><br>To subscribe: email <a href="mailto:lctg-subscribe@toku.us" target="_blank" style="font-family:monospace">lctg-subscribe@toku.us</a> To unsubscribe: email <a href="mailto:lctg-unsubscribe@toku.us" target="_blank" style="font-family:monospace">lctg-unsubscribe@toku.us</a><br>Future and Past meeting information: <a href="http://lctg.toku.us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="font-family:monospace">http://LCTG.toku.us</a><br>List information: <a href="http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="font-family:monospace">http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us</a><br></div></blockquote></div><div style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><blockquote type="cite" style="padding:0px 0.4em;border-left-width:2px;border-left-style:solid;margin:0px;font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;border-left-color:rgb(16,16,255)"><div style="margin:0px;padding:0px;font-family:monospace">This message was sent to <a href="mailto:mwolfe@vinebrook.com" target="_blank" style="font-family:monospace">mwolfe@vinebrook.com</a>.<br>Set your list options: <a href="http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/mwolfe@vinebrook.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="font-family:monospace">http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/mwolfe@vinebrook.com</a></div>
</blockquote><p style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><br></p>
</div>
===============================================<br>
::The Lexington Computer and Technology Group Mailing List::<br>
Reply goes to sender only; Reply All to send to list.<br>
Send to the list: <a href="mailto:LCTG@lists.toku.us" target="_blank">LCTG@lists.toku.us</a> Message archives: <a href="http://lists.toku.us/pipermail/lctg-toku.us/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.toku.us/pipermail/lctg-toku.us/</a><br>
To subscribe: email <a href="mailto:lctg-subscribe@toku.us" target="_blank">lctg-subscribe@toku.us</a> To unsubscribe: email <a href="mailto:lctg-unsubscribe@toku.us" target="_blank">lctg-unsubscribe@toku.us</a><br>
Future and Past meeting information: <a href="http://lctg.toku.us/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://LCTG.toku.us</a><br>
List information: <a href="http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us</a><br>
This message was sent to <a href="mailto:s%2Blctglist@smistuff.com" target="_blank">s+lctglist@smistuff.com</a>.<br>
Set your list options: <a href="http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/s+lctglist@smistuff.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/s+lctglist@smistuff.com</a><br>
</blockquote></div></div>
===============================================<br>::The Lexington Computer and Technology Group Mailing List::<br>Reply goes to sender only; Reply All to send to list.<br>Send to the list: LCTG@lists.toku.us Message archives: http://lists.toku.us/pipermail/lctg-toku.us/<br>To subscribe: email lctg-subscribe@toku.us To unsubscribe: email lctg-unsubscribe@toku.us<br>Future and Past meeting information: http://LCTG.toku.us<br>List information: http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us<br>This message was sent to abroun@gmail.com.<br>Set your list options: http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/abroun@gmail.com<br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>