[pct-l] Foreign Hiker - 2 questions and SPOT Connect

[Eric Martinot]

I live overseas too, and went through this a few years ago.  I ended up buying an ATT Go-Phone (pre-paid) smartphone because Verizon didn't seem to offer a pre-paid plan for smartphones at the time (may have changed now).  After unlocking the Go-Phone smartphone (a major project), I was able use it overseas as my primary phone with overseas SIM cards. 

I don't know if an ATT Go-Phone (prepaid) SIM card will work in a non-ATT phone, someone should verify that before you count on that. (Seems that Yoshihiro Murikami's recent PCT-L post implies that that the ATT Go-Phone SIM will work in a non-ATT phone.)   If yes, however, ATT won't sell you just the SIM card by itself, you have to buy it with a phone.  But you can buy a really cheap ATT Go-Phone for $30-40 with a Go-Phone SIM card, and then just throw away the phone and use the SIM card.  The biggest problem for an overseas hiker is that ATT will only mail the phone/SIM to your credit card billing address, so you'd need to have one in the US, I think.

True, ATT service on the trail isn't great.  It was fine in almost all trail towns, and at high elevations on the trail with line-of-sight to some metro area.  But many times I got a carrier signal of another network, and couldn't use it, the phone says "not registered on network" and the Go-Phone pre-paid service doesn't allow out-of-network roaming.

I also got a Delorme Inreach to pair (bluetooth) with the ATT Go-Phone (Android), and use that for text messages (140-char) when out of range of cell service.  Works really well, but its heavy (8 oz.), and requires a fairly clear view of the sky, so not in deep valleys, although trees by themselves don't seem to bother it.  The Inreach was the first on the market to allow two-way communication, so it can receive texts too, but SPOT now seems to be providing two-way also?  I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion on PCT-L over the past year about Delorme vs. SPOT, as they are now head-to-head competitors it seems, and both useful gear for the PCT.