• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • Stephen Foskett
      • My Publications
        • Urban Forms in Suburbia: The Rise of the Edge City
      • Storage Magazine Columns
      • Whitepapers
      • Multimedia
      • Speaking Engagements
    • Services
    • Disclosures
  • Categories
    • Apple
    • Ask a Pack Rat
    • Computer History
    • Deals
    • Enterprise storage
    • Events
    • Personal
    • Photography
    • Terabyte home
    • Virtual Storage
  • Guides
    • The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide
      • The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
    • The iPad Exchange ActiveSync Guide
      • iPad Exchange ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
    • Toolbox
      • Power Over Ethernet Calculator
      • EMC Symmetrix WWN Calculator
      • EMC Symmetrix TimeFinder DOS Batch File
    • Linux Logical Volume Manager Walkthrough
  • Calendar

Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

Understanding the accumulation of data

You are here: Home / Everything / Apple / International Roaming With the Verizon iPhone 5

International Roaming With the Verizon iPhone 5

February 3, 2013 By Stephen 9 Comments

Connectivity overseas can be a real pain. Roaming is prohibitively expensive, so a local SIM is best. But most American mobile phones are “locked” to a carrier, and American phone companies use different network technologies and frequencies than most other countries. That’s why I was excited to test my Verizon iPhone 5 abroad.

The Verizon iPhone 5 works perfectly on Vodafone Australia’s 3G network

Using the Verizon iPhone 5 on the Vodafone Australia GSM Network

I switched from AT&T to Verizon with the iPhone 5 mainly for local reasons: Verizon’s LTE network remains over 100 times faster than AT&T’s backward 2G in my home town! But Verizon offered free “Personal Hotspot” tethering, a real money-saver.

Another great thing about the Verizon iPhone 5 (and LTE iPad, for that matter) is that it is “unlocked” out of the box, making it simple to use it while traveling internationally. This is all the more remarkable since Verizon uses a completely different network technology than the “standard” international GSM. But their iPhone 5 and iPads work just fine on these networks!

Although I was pleased to hear that the Verizon iPhone 5 was unlocked, I was concerned it might not work overseas. So much so that, before I left, I had AT&T unlock my out-of-contract iPhone 4S so I would have a “fallback device” in case my iPhone 5 didn’t work during my trip to Australia.

I needn’t have worried. The Verizon iPhone 5 is indeed unlocked and works perfectly on Vodafone’s GSM network in Australia. I’m sure it would also work great on most other international 3G networks as well. I simply purchased and inserted a Nano SIM, reset my network settings, and got back to work!

What About LTE in Australia?

I picked Vodafone because they were the first company I spotted on landing at Sydney airport. Their A$49 plan includes 2 GB of data and plenty of calling and texting, and they don’t restrict Personal Hotspot. But I could just as easily have purchased an Optus or Telstra Nano SIM from the store next door.

Note: Prepaid SIM cards are widely available in the International Terminal at Sydney Airport. There are Vodafone and Optus stores outside security and customs near exit C/D and another Vodafone store inside security in Terminal 2. These stores stock prepaid SIMs for phones, smartphones, and mobile broadband, including Micro SIMs and Nano SIMs. I didn’t spot a Heathrow-esque SIM vending machine, however.

Unlike Optus and Telstra, Vodafone doesn’t yet have an LTE network in Australia. But this doesn’t matter for an American iPhone user like me, since the Verizon iPhone won’t work on Australian LTE networks anyway. I would be stuck with GSM regardless of which SIM I picked.

The iPhone 5 comes in three varieties: A GSM/LTE version for North America (including AT&T), a CDMA/GSM/LTE model for CDMA countries (including Verizon in the USA), and an “international” GSM/LTE model for most carriers outside North America. Confusing the situation, the CDMA and international LTE versions have the same model number but different modem firmware. So, although they use the exact same hardware, the CDMA model will not work with the LTE networks found in most countries outside the USA.

Stephen’s Stance

I’m pleased that Australia, like the UK, offers convenient prepaid SIM buying options right in the airport, but I’m even happier that it works perfectly in my Verizon iPhone 5. I also brought along an unlocked Three MiFi, an unlocked ex-AT&T iPhone 4S, and a Verizon LTE iPad 3, all of which work perfectly on Vodafone Australia as well. But with free Personal Hotspot on the iPhone, I decided a single SIM would be enough connectivity, even for me!

You might also want to read these other posts...

  • How To Install ZeroTier on TrueNAS 12
  • How To Connect Everything From Everywhere with ZeroTier
  • Electric Car Over the Internet: My Experience Buying From…
  • Liberate Wi-Fi Smart Bulbs and Switches with Tasmota!
  • Test Your Wi-Fi with iPerf for iOS

Filed Under: Apple, Personal, Terabyte home Tagged With: AirPort, AT&T, Australia, CDMA, GSM, iPad, iPhone 5, LTE, Optus, Personal Hotspot, Sydney, Telstra, travel, unlock, Verizon, Vodafone

Primary Sidebar

The movie never changes. It can’t change; but every time you see it, it seems different because you’re different. You see different things. – 12 Monkeys

Subscribe via Email

Subscribe via email and you will receive my latest blog posts in your inbox. No ads or spam, just the same great content you find on my site!
 New posts (daily)
 Where's Stephen? (weekly)

Download My Book


Download my free e-book:
Essential Enterprise Storage Concepts!

Recent Posts

How To Install ZeroTier on TrueNAS 12

February 3, 2022

Scam Alert: Fake DMCA Takedown for Link Insertion

January 24, 2022

How To Connect Everything From Everywhere with ZeroTier

January 14, 2022

Electric Car Over the Internet: My Experience Buying From Vroom

November 28, 2020

Powering Rabbits: The Mean Well LRS-350-12 Power Supply

October 18, 2020

Tortoise or Hare? Nvidia Jetson TK1

September 22, 2020

Running Rabbits: More About My Cloud NUCs

September 21, 2020

Introducing Rabbit: I Bought a Cloud!

September 10, 2020

Remove ROM To Use LSI SAS Cards in HPE Servers

August 23, 2020

Test Your Wi-Fi with iPerf for iOS

July 9, 2020

Symbolic Links

    Featured Posts

    Review: American Standard’s Champion 4 Toilet Flushes Almost Anything

    July 31, 2012

    Deduplication Coming to Primary Storage

    September 16, 2008

    Review: Blue Snowball USB Microphone

    March 31, 2010

    The Rack Endgame: Converged Infrastructure and Disaggregation

    September 19, 2014

    The Rack Endgame: Open Compute Project

    September 17, 2014

    10 Mysteries The Lost Finale Definitively Settled

    May 25, 2010

    Why I Am Biased Against FCoE

    October 21, 2011

    Replacing Google Reader With Feedbin and Reeder

    May 5, 2013

    Cisco’s Trojan Horse

    September 15, 2014

    The Prime Directive of Storage: Do Not Lose Data

    December 12, 2014

    Footer

    Legalese

    Copyright © 2022 · Log in