TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums Southern Caribbean does T-Mobile work on Union Island-Grenada-Carriac

Hi guys - any feedback would be most appreciative.

Needing cell phone coverage to call a landline back in the USA -

Does anyone know if T-Mobile works on Union Island, Grenada, Carriacou


- I phoned mrsimguy.com and they advised that their sim card/plan that they have will not work in this area of the Caribbean (nor will my sprint phone)

TMobile has a vacation plan where you buy a phone from them, with minutes/data for like 65 bucks and the minutes/data are good for 30 days (you keep the phone for future trips)

I am on TMO and travel all over the planet, made the switch after 25 years with ATT and no regrets. The only roaming cost I incurred was in Leichtenstein. The coverage in the Caribbean has been great except in St Thomas. The speed when international roaming is 3g, but who cares it is free. Phone calls are 20 cents/minute. Extra bonus if you have an issue you can get to a human very fast. TMO has a international coverage map of the 140 countries they cover on their website.

can you explain how it works w/them

Example - once you have a phone registered w/them; do you have to go to them each time you get ready to leave the USA to have a certain Sim Card placed in the phone so that it works when you arrive to your destination?

Wow, kneafseym. This is the first actual report I heard of t-mobile working in the Caribbean for data. That is great news! Please elaborate if you would.

Ha, ha! That's because we are all in for AT&T here. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

You do not have to call Tmobile (TMO) or change sim cards you just go. When you land, I always get a txt that says welcome to XYZ you have free data and text, calls are 20 cents/minute. It you want to upgrade to 4g you can (I never have).

TMO has great customer service, you always get to a human fast.

ATT phone work on the same system at TMO so just unlock it and get a TMO sim card in the states.

My last trip sailed from Jamaica to DR with stops in Haiti, no issues texting or calling, but internet was VERY slow in Haiti. You also need to consider that cell phone coverage is not optimized for the water, but for the land.

Look at Tmobile international coverage on their website for more information. Two big plus items, no changing sim cards, so I keep my number and no roaming cost. Downside of not having a local sim card is calling locally when roaming or having people call you, AKA calling a BVI number from a US number does cost. I never found the cost to be much, but there is a cost.

At my suggestion the folks at Active Capt tried TMO in bahamas and hated it as the internet was not fast enough, but they are trying to run a website and blog.

My T-Mobile phone has worked throughout the Caribbean over the past couple of years. It works well in The Grenadines, Carriacou, and Grenada as the OP asked - but the data is 3G at best, but functional.

The only island I had problems on was Antigua. For the most part, it did not connect to their partner networks there, although the phone could see them. On occasion, I did get a connection. This problem persisted for the month I was there - I'm not sure about the issue.

I did have some issues with receiving texts in the French West Indies. I could not get a text sent from my broker, but I could get others.

Like tropical blend, I have had issues before. There are usually several cell providers in each country and just search and see which one works best if you have an issue. In BVI I have to force my phone to stay on Digicell and not go to Tmobile in StThomas, to have better coverage.

We tried TMO on two trips to the BVI last winter. Both trips had strong signal strength but the service was so slow to respond it was unusable more than Half the time. When it did work the speed was ok, it was like we were a low priority and we did not get any time thru the network.

Plan to try Google FI on the next trip to the Grenedines this winter.

Thanks for the postings

Feedback:

Purchased a phone thru T-Mobile w/sim card & activated before leaving FL and it worked out great - was able to check email, recv/send text msgs & make/recv phones calls; some spots while island hopping was intermittent but obviously understood

upon my return I cancelled my phone plan (since I have a flip phone that I use as my day to day thru sprint) but will keep my "vacation phone" tucked away until our next vacation & then have it turned back on (free of charge) - process was easy as pie and well worth the 100 buck investment for a vacation phone & 70 bucks/month plan