Taking an iPhone from Australia to the USA

I recently had a three week trip to the States and wanted to take my iPhone 4s with me. Getting a local SIM would let me keep in touch with home using Skype as well as have access to the net and location services. I wasn't too bothered about being able to make calls but it would be useful for calling ahead and confirming our accommodation.

After a bit of research I ended up with the choice of AT&T or T-Mobile who both use the rest-of-the-world  standard GSM  system. I was in New York and would be touring around New England, up into Northern Vermont and across to Maine before working my way back down the coast to New York so I needed a service with decent coverage outside the main metro areas.

After a visit to to Grand Central Station, we went first to the T-Mobile store on Lexington Avenue. Yes they could give me a pre-paid plan for $50 with voice and data but the guy insisted that I had to go to the Apple Store to get the phone activated. I knew this was rubbish as it could be done with any wireless connection so we went down Lexington to the AT&T store where the service was excellent. A guy called Gerard activated my phone with the wireless hotspot from his phone and added some software and an additional profile to enable the phone to connect to the AT&T network (apparently it works slightly differently over there). Within a minute I was connected up and ready to go. I signed up for a $25 voice plan which gave me something like 250 minutes plus 2GB of data for $50. Slightly more expensive than T-Mobile but working in minutes.

I have to say that I never had a single problem with phone reception all the way around New England. The only problem I had was near the Canadian border where I received a message from Rogers Telecom telling me that data was charged at $12 per MB. I took the SIM out until I was out of range!

On returning to Australia, I deleted the AT&T profile, put the Optus SIM back in and was back on the Optus network without a hitch.

So, I would certainly recommend AT&T for coverage (in New England) and service.