Sprint Introduces Free International Data Roaming and Texting

As some of you might know, I’m a huge fan of Sprint and I wouldn’t trade it for T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon or any other carrier. I absolutely love Sprint’s 4G LTE speeds in Los Angeles and I use at least 25GB of data per month.

As of today, I’ve used 16.7GB of total data with 12 days left on my billing cycle even though I spent a week in Cuba earlier this month! I love Sprint’s unlimited 4G LTE data plan without any speed caps or throttling.

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I’m not sure how I missed this, but earlier this month, apparently Sprint rolled out free international data roaming and texting for 15 countries dubbed ‘International Value Roaming‘. This is a free service for new and existing Sprint customers.

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The 15 countries include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Russia, South Korea, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Here’s the catch – The International Value Roaming speeds are capped at 2G which is pretty much dial up speeds. You’ll also need to ‘activate’ the International Value Roaming service online, in the store, via phone, or via online chat.

Sprint does however offer 3G speeds for the aforementioned countries in upsell packages such as $15 for 100MB (1 day), $25 for 200MB (7 days), and $50 for 500MB (14 days). The great thing is that there aren’t any overage charges, so you’ll revert back to 2G speeds after you’ve consumed the allotted 3G data amounts. Again, these 3G data packages are only for the 15 countries listed which is still a shame but it rivals what T-Mobile is offer albeit they have more countries to boot.

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As I mentioned, there is catch because the ‘International Value Roaming’ service doesn’t activate by itself. I went ahead and logged onto sprint.com and went to ‘Change My Services’.

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I went ahead and selected ‘Sprint International Value Roaming $0.00’ and clicked OK.

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I instantly received a pop up stating that the plan will be active in 1-2 hours and that I should log out and log back in to refresh to see if the service has been activated.

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I also received an e-mail right away with the proposed changes.

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I checked my account 2 hours later and voila, the International Value Roaming service was added under ‘Add-On Services’.

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I travel to Latin America quite a bit and I’m REALLY happy that Sprint has upped their game in the international roaming department. I’ll test these ‘2G’ speed theories when I travel to Argentina, Brazil, and Chile next month. I’ll be sure to report back with my findings.

 

About the Author

Points Summary
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2 Comments on "Sprint Introduces Free International Data Roaming and Texting"

  1. Heading to PTY tonight. I called Sprint and had them activate, have yet to check online to make sure it was added properly. I was told that you will have to notify them prior to each trip that you plan to use the service. Don’t know if there is anything I need to do with my phone settings to be able to use the lightning fast 2G speeds. Will report when I get back (SFO-LAX-TPA-MIA-PTY // PTY-MIA-SFO).

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