SERBIA: data access, ppd, GPRS and up?

[heinz57g]

is anybody out there in serbia and actually uses mobile data access? is anything prepaid available
that a visitor could buy and use? any real firsthand experiences?

greetings - heinz -

[hagiga24]

I had bought a vip sim from serbia and worked well...

[heinz57g]

wow, that was a quick response, tks. bought it in which kind of shop, any restrictions, credit card,
residence permit, all those crazy conditions some companies come up with?

which tariff did you use, which approx cost? what speed? and when was this?

sorry for asking so detailed, but most info seems to be outdated - or the providers change so fast
that nothing can be correct for more than a month or two.

greetings - heinz -

[Effendi]

All the tariffs listed here on this website are updated:
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/serbia.html

[heinz57g]

effendi, the tariffs might be updated, but when i tried to ask friends in serbia and hungary
on the phone, they came up with so many horror stories (restrictions when buying cards for
foreigners, no way to buy additional credit, limited coverage etc etc), that i thought asking
here for some real first-hand experience would make sense.

when i go there next week, it has to work, first day. i have little time for experementing
(which means I have, but my office doesnt).

in serbia, and based on your very usefull info, the MT:S TOKI tariff might be the one to go
for, mainly because of more extensive coverage. anybody here has any experience with
that one?

and who, after buying the sim card, can give info about login data (for my E220 modem)?
i have, in the most civilized (?) parts of europe, been to shops that sold special data SIM
cards, but had no, not the least, idea of how to set it up.

live is an adventure ...

greetings - heinz -

[Effendi]

The info you find here it's just basically the rates, and that's updated. Talking about how to buy and how to set-up it's a bit more complicated and it changes from country to country. Surely a direct experience is the most helpful thing.

BTW if you are interested in data settings for MT:S, take a look here:
http://www.mts.telekom.yu/index.php?ID=22404 (for 3G)
http://www.mts.telekom.yu/index.php?ID=22450 (for GPRS)

Here it's for VIP:
http://konfiguracija.vipmobile.co.yu/

And here it's for Telenor:
http://www.telenor.co.yu/?section=private&page=258

No idea about documents needed and so on, but usually in eastern countries no registration is required. BTW just ask the seller.

[heinz57g]

effendi, tks a lot, those login details should help.

>> eastern countries no registration is required. BTW just ask the seller

you are an optimist. the actual provider usually hides behind callcenters, and they really
have no idea in most cases. the sales shops, even if run by the provider (but usually a
franchise), know how to sell you a 5MB camera mobile phone, but asking them about
data traffic usually gets a sorry smile. when trying to register for a data SIM only a few
week ago in bulgaria, i was told i needed a residence permit. when the shop then called
the headoffice after i argued for 30 minutes, they told him that they would wave the
residence permit if my embassy would guarantee for me! would your embassy do that?
mine would just laugh ...

greetings - heinz -

[Effendi]

I just meant that in many countries, expecially in Eastern Europe, you usually don't need any registration, or a really straightforward one and you can use your prepaid card at once. In Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, for example, you can buy a starting kit anywhere, just pay and go. In Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Belarus you have to go to the operators' shops, but in the first two cases it's really easy, in the latter 2 a bit more complicated... I don't know in the Balkans, but it should be not so different.

BTW the first mistake most of the time is to ask for a "data plan". AFAIK in very few places do exist special data plans on prepaid. Most of the times it's just a normal prepaid card on which you can use data or add some data-bundle. Usually official websites, as well as prepaidgsm.net, are very useful from this point of view, much more than the shop attendants, which usually speak a language I don't speak, and often are not well informed too...

[heinz57g]

>> first mistake most of the time is to ask for a "data plan"

oh yes, i learned this the hard way too. sometimes they even refuse to sell the card if you say you want
to use it for data only. so what i usually do, buy the card, put money on it, and then walk back in a while
later (preferably another shop) and ask about data details. watch their faces drop ...

>> shop attendants, which usually speak a language I don't speak,
>> and often are not well informed too ...

... or speak it perfectly well for standard questions and outright sales, but all of a sudden revert to a mountain
dialect of their mother language when asked something 'special'. but: this can happen in austria++ too.

greetings - heinz -

[heinz57g]

any serbians here pls who could jump in and help? was over
the weekend in novi sad, and tried, totally without success.

got the TOKI card (only the 200DIN was on the market, anywhere),
had it registred and checked, made a local call to make sure, talked
to the hotline to see that GPRS was not blocked, and ... nothing -
''connection not possible''

used gprsinternet or -wap as apn, mts and 064 to log in, in all
variations my modem permitted (incl all setting suggested here on
the board), nothing.

had a very strong GPRS signal with mts indicated, though, so that
could have not been the problem.

was a weekend, so i was not 100% dependend on it, but next week
i need it for work, and it HAS TO FUNCTION, somehow.

any suggestions?

greetings - heinz -