Talk:United States/@comment-4998695-20120408044707

I had a very good experience with AT&T. I first bought a GoPhone SIM via eBay for my 3GS unlocked iPhone last year, and followed the instructions above. Success! Top it up, purchase a data plan, change the APN, and off you go.

Then I let the balance expire and didn't bother with the account until I was next in the USA, only to find that my account was deactivated because I had waited too long to refill it. So I went to an AT&T store. The old SIM for the deactivated account cannot be re-activated; you have to buy a new one for $15. They were fine to sell me one for my iPhone but would not verify that I could use it with a data plan (you can, but I guess they either don't know or won't say).

Even though it costs a bit more, it was a better experience buying the SIM from the AT&T store, because they can activate it there -- it seems that it may be difficult to activate a GoPhone SIM with an iPhone -- when I tried with my first SIM I couldn't and I had to get my eBay seller to activate it for me. For the second SIM the sales rep had to use her own phone to activate it.

Some people are saying that you shouldn't tell the rep you have an iPhone, but I had my iPhone right there and it wasn't a problem. I guess it depends on the rep, but I suspect that they'll sell you something if you insist, even though they'll probably downplay the possiblity that you can use a data plan on the iPhone.

So if you're a reasonably frequent visitor to the USA and you don't want to pay roaming rates, buy an AT&T SIM and you'll get 3G speeds with a data package that you can choose based on how much you need. Then, just make sure you keep the account active -- topping up $10 every three months will keep it from being deactivated (although the $10 will expire after 30 days), or you can pay $100 which keeps the account active for 14 month and the $100 expires in a year.