CALIFORNIA - local PAYG SIM recommendation for two weeks

try

Please recommend the best USA PAYG sim to use for a two week stay in California. Texts are not important. I will have my own Irish number diverted to my US number so I can take calls when I'm away.

So I will be receiving lots of calls. A few GB of data that I can tether with. Calling back home is not important as I can connect with some VoIP service.

h57xiucj2z946q

I usually go with SimpleMobile when going to the states for a few weeks.

Lots of websites or people on ebay will sell sims for you, and activate/topup for you before you arrive.

devildriver

Support your own!

Irish company that is...

http://www.maxroam.com/

mikewest

For local access in USA get a recommendation from someone there on what is the best service where you are going e.g. T-Mobile could be great one side of town but no coverage where you will be staying. Not all carriers are equal. but ignore Verizon, Sprint and Virgin as they don't use GSM. Also get a Skype number in Ireland and have your calls forwarded to that. You can pick them up on using Skype on 3G with whoever you use for access in Cali. Should save you a fortune on forwarding charges unless you are on Tesco mobile or the top Vodafone Red. T-Mobile do seem pretty good for 3G most places but I am tied into AT&T and their coverage is fine also.

Edit: I think T-Mobile give the biggest Data pack on PAYG at the minute.

demon3

I normally use AT&T Gophone, I bought a sim in an AT&T store over there and use it in my unlocked Galaxy note 2. As long as you top it up every 2/3 months it will stay active, plus if you already have the sim you can top it up online from Ireland before you travel so its active when you land.

Depending on what you want to use it for they have a couple of top up options. I have been all down the east coast with it and was in LA and Las Vegas in August and had no issues with signal anywhere (including the middle of the desert), put there are black spots for every provider in the US. Plus if you use Data, there top package at $60 gives you a decent package.

http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/prepaidplans.html

T-mobile for internet is very slow in my experience, like edge slow if you’re lucky, with AT&T I normally get HSDPA. They are not necessarily the best, but I find them very good.

try

Thanks. I hadn't any replies for a few days but I also checked out other ideas.

I've gone for two Straight Talk SIM cards, one AT&T, the other T-mobile (to avoid the black spots. They're working out about $10 each including shipping and tax. I will also get the two $45 vouchers which will give unlimited data, talk and text for each sim. I'm diverting my Blueface number to the US cellphone numbers (about 1.5 c/minute) and will use a local access number to call home from the cell phones. I can text with cabbage / eirtext.

@ about 1.50 / minute, roaming in the US on an Irish sim would be very expensive

lomb

So you divert your Irish mobile to a blueface number, and this to the USA number? Could you share how that works?

try

I divert all calls to either my Goldfish / Blueface number. On the Goldfish / Blueface settings page, I enter how I want to receive calls to my Goldfish / Blueface number - either to my US cellphone which will cost me 1.2c or 1.4 c/ minute (the cost of diversion to US) or free to a VoIP app eg Counter Path Bria on smartphone which uses data and drains phone battery quickly.

My Irish mobile plan is unlimited calls so diversion to Goldfish / Blueface is included in my