I'm going to be in: Hong Kong Macau UAE Switzerland Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Nicaragua British Virgin Islands Belgium Denmark UK Ireland Iceland ...this year alone, and it strikes me that a global data SIM is probably going to run me less than trying to chase down and buy multiple SIMs, especially given that I'm typically only in a given country for 1-4 days. For reasons relating to employer policy, I can't use data on my company-paid plan overseas, which is half the fun of having an iPhone in the first place. Any suggestions for provider? I don't actually need a voice number per se as I already have that covered so long as I don't abuse the privilege.
Do you want to do this with a phone or with an ipad? If you already have the phone for voice and will be taking an ipad anyway, going that way might be more useful, to have the bigger screen for data as well as a bigger keyboard.
I need to do this with an iPhone. I'll also have an iPad, which I may or may not buy data for, either via a second SIM or via the AT&T plan, depending. (I'll have two iPhones and an iPad.)
After crunching numbers for the fifty-hundredth time, I think I'm going to go a different route and buy a new iPad and keep my phone the way it is, so I'll need an iPad SIM, not a phone SIM.
I am not sure you will be a able to get a global SIM with a data plan and if you do happen to find one the data charges will be expensive. Look for local pay as go data plans from local networks, which may be the better option.
This site has some multi-country SIM cards that may be of use: http://www.goabroad.ekit.com/ekit/MobilePurchase/Sims
Given the number of countries you'll be visiting, buying local SIM cards in each location would be a pain. You'd need to know in advance which carriers in each country offer a MicroSIM for your iPhone, and which carriers have data plans. And you'd need a bunch of SIM cards; maybe a Vodafone SIM would be OK for most of Europe, etc. But if I were you, I'd look at getting your own SIM in the U.S. and then enabling that carrier's international data plan first. Verizon and AT&T have plans that are around $25 for 100MB internationally. That will sound expensive to the average U.S. data user, who is used to paying about 5% of that cost. But it's much cheaper than $38 for 0.8 MB that I recently paid when I really need to turn on roaming overseas. Another alternative is to look at Global SIM providers like onesimcard.com. They offer data roaming in most countries for $1 / MB. Here's a posting I created on another flying-related site about onesimcard.
