Local data sharing

Family from Ireland are visiting and one of them used €27 in data just navigating to the beach. Ouch!!!

If you're visiting Aotearoa this Christmas (or any other time) and don't want to switch the sim on your phone remember that NZ pocket wifi devices can be purchased for as little as $79NZD, they are unlocked, so can be used in other countries or with any mobile provider, and in NZ we don't have the tethering restrictions on our burner/prepay plans as many other countries do. Even better, your data plan can be shared with up to 5 or 10 devices (depending on model) and the pesky teenagers can still Snapchat their friends back home.

It's worth checking out what plans are available in countries your travelling to in case this trick can work for you. Burner plans in the US tend to prohibit tethering — although I did find one in Hawaii through a local provider — but some countries, such as Australia, are as relaxed as New Zealand.

Addendum

A reminder if you do this that your devices will consider themselves to be on a normal wifi network which means that all those wifi only activities, such as backups, updates and sync-ing will run. Remember to disable these if you don't want to burn through 2GB of data overnight as your iPhone backs up while charging, or after your Windows ultrabook has downloaded the latest patches ready for installation.

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