Droid 2 Global (How to)

[Reefdiver]

Just got a Global 2 last week and I am going out of the county and would like to know how the global roaming works? I saw that you call a number to activate the sim card, but it says you need a global plan? Do you have to pay a monthly charge for the Global plan or just pay the roaming fees? Will this phone make it cheaper to make calls out of the country? Thanks

 

[Reefdiver]

Nobody?????

 

[jbdow]

my understanding from the info provided with my phone is you pay by the month
with special caveats for the WAY you use the phone in certain countries. don't
remember which ones though... i'd call vzw...

r, john

 

[hookbill]

There are somethings we are really good in answering. Issues with the phone, hacking. But when it comes to plans really you best bet is to call Verizon.

I think the previous poster has it right. You pay for a special overseas package.

 

[freightdog]

Call global support, choose the option for global email program. You get a person right away. Tell them where you're traveling, and that you want to activate your sim card and activate the global email feature. Two options, $65 / month is unlimited data and no special price on calling, $70 / month is unlimited data and a slight discount on calling. Which one depends on how much calling you will do. I do no calling, only data, so I opt for the $65 plan.

Unless you're going to use foreign service with a different sim card (which will require unlocking the phone with an unlock code from the same global services folks, just ask for the code), use the global plan, don't roam. Roaming charges are insane, simple use over the course of a few days will rack up a several hundred dollar bill. I've learned this because of glitches in their system that sent me messages that I had racked up such a bill, but upon calling them, they assured me it was a glitch and I was on the unlimited plan. Wouldn't want to be roaming!

When you come back from overseas, wait a day, especially if you're coming back from the far east (crossing the international dateline heading east) and then call global services, asking to discontinue the global plan. They will revert you back to the domestic $30 / month plan and your bill will be prorated for the portion of the month you were overseas. It works great, you can turn it off and on as often as you like, and you have unlimited data overseas.

 

[freightdog]

Also, the $65 global plan replaces your regular $30 / month data plan while you have it active, it's not in addition to the data plan you already have. So it's really only $35 more per month.

 

[silver6054]

Call global support, choose the option for global email program. You get a person right away. Tell them where you're traveling, and that you want to activate your sim card and activate the global email feature. Two options, $65 / month is unlimited data and no special price on calling, $70 / month is unlimited data and a slight discount on calling. Which one depends on how much calling you will do. I do no calling, only data, so I opt for the $65 plan.

Unless you're going to use foreign service with a different sim card (which will require unlocking the phone with an unlock code from the same global services folks, just ask for the code), use the global plan, don't roam. Roaming charges are insane, simple use over the course of a few days will rack up a several hundred dollar bill. I've learned this because of glitches in their system that sent me messages that I had racked up such a bill, but upon calling them, they assured me it was a glitch and I was on the unlimited plan. Wouldn't want to be roaming!

When you come back from overseas, wait a day, especially if you're coming back from the far east (crossing the international dateline heading east) and then call global services, asking to discontinue the global plan. They will revert you back to the domestic $30 / month plan and your bill will be prorated for the portion of the month you were overseas. It works great, you can turn it off and on as often as you like, and you have unlimited data overseas.

Yes, the plan is good value for heavy data usage at ~ $2 a day for unlimited. For lighter data, you can do better with a local SIM in some places, but, as always, many will prefer the safety of unlimited. Where it is not at all good is for calls, VZW charges $1.29 per min ($0.99 with the additional $4.95 a month plan) for UK-US calls, a local UK SIM is $0.06 per minute. But if you make only a few calls, stay with the Verizon plan!

Also note the name of the plan is very stupid, it covers all web-browsing etc, not just email.