T-Mobile is doubling down on its efforts to make roaming more affordable and effortless by expanding its Simple Global offering, part of the T-Mobile ONE plan, to 70 new countries, bringing the total number of supported countries to over 210, starting on July 22.
Simple Global provides unlimited text and data for T-Mobile customers while they"re abroad (in most countries) at no additional charge, with the caveat of data speeds reaching a maximum of 128kbps. Calls are also fairly cheap, with a flat 0.25$/minute rate, as opposed to the pay-as-you-go rates of Verizon and AT&T. T-Mobile also introduced unlimited calling, texting, and 5GB of LTE data for its customers when roaming in Canada or Mexico a couple of years ago.
In addition to the expansion to 70 new countries, which gives the carrier a sizeable margin over its competitors" roaming conditions, new daily passes for international data were also announced, providing a limited amount of full-speed LTE data when it may be necessary. T-Mobile"s passes come in at half the price of those offered by AT&T or Verizon and the conditions seem to be pretty similar if not better, based on the provided table. The new data passes will be available from August 1, and they also include free international calling and 512MB of LTE data for the duration of the pass. Customers will be limited to two passes every 24 hours, however.
Notably absent from the comparison is Sprint, likely a result of the upcoming merger between the two. We still don"t know exactly how that fusion will affect both of the companies" offerings, but for now, T-Mobile appears to be committed to offering better value than the two biggest players in the United States.