I recently went to Mexico and was pleasantly surprised to get a text message telling me that roaming data and text was just fine and that calls would be billed at 10c per minute. The hotel I stayed at had wifi, so whenever I needed to make a call, I made sure my phone was connected to wifi. When it was, the carrier changed from Movistar to T-Mobile, and calls were unlimited just like I was in the US.
The only way I would go back is if T-Mobile suddenly ceased to exist.
I have a (physical) device called a FreedomPop. It is a local wifi hotspot that routes traffic over a mobile data network. And it's awesome for giving the middle-finger to overpriced hotel wifi services and the like.
www.freedompop.com (I have no connection other than a very satisfied user). I'm so satisfied that I won't even post my affiliate code, lest someone think I'm shilling for my own benefit.
Or you could do exactly the same thing from your Android phone, provided you've rooted it. Installing Cyanogenmod makes it even easier (you won't need to download an app; the wifi access point is right in the settings), but isn't required.
I'm curious, what kind of data transfer rate do you need to get a solid call through? In the past when I tried to make WIFI calls through Google Voice "Hangout Dialer" the call quality was poor.
For VOIP calls you don't need much bandwidth, but you do need low latency and low jitter. Both are pretty bad on cell-phone data connections, so it's rarely worth the bother.
However, these comments are about providing a wifi hotspot that routes over the data connection rather than VOIP.
this does not fix his problem because if he WiFi they wouldn't have been roaming to begin with.
If he used the app, he would be roaming, incurring data charges.
Can't tell if you didn't logically think this through or you are pumping your own app.
When I goto US, from Canada, I use T-Mobile Sim for unlimited calling and data 3$ a day...
If you are a US resident you have plenty of carrier options that cover unlimited entire North America coverage.
Also the OP could have cached/saved the area in google maps or installed another GPS/navi software that has a offline map mode.
Now to the article... Should have planned ahead. So many travel addons from carriers, using a SIM card from country you are traveling to... Which I know is available at the exact border crossing shops at the border that the OP went through
