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Capvermell · 31-10-2010, 08:47

I have an English friend of mine (I am also from the UK) who has just moved out to Spain indefinitely (may be permanently) and is living in a place with no phone line. Of course being a non techie they just went for the heavily marketed option of a Movistar Pay As You Go SIM card for just phone calls. They also weren't aware of services like www.18185.co.uk for their friends in England to call the Spanish mobile more cheaply than the extortionate BT Spanish mobile rates.

They clearly need to have both a mobile data connection and use SIP for phone calls so that English friends can call them using a UK SIP phone number (ie with Sipgate). I am also recommending that they get a Lebara Movil SIM to make calls to UK landlines when they are out and about or in case their mobile data connection fails when they are at home.

However from the discussion above there seems to be no guarantee that SIP or other Voip use will continue working on simyo (which looks the best option for now if you need to use more than 1GB per month which is surely likely during the upcoming winter months) so all I can do is recommend they go for Simyo and then review the position if they ever block Voip use. Ultimately they may move to an apartment that has a landline and have an ADSL connection but this may not be for several months. Where they are living now is rent free but it is likely to be put up for sale but the sale could easily take a year or more to go through and the costs of putting in a phone line on such an unknown short term basis are probably not worthwhile.

Is the only option to go for Simyo and hope they don't block Voip use?

Speaking of simyo I also don't understand their terms and conditions for keeping the SIM working as I bought two of their SIM cards last summer (2009) in August and their rules seem to say that you need to make a call every 6 months to avoid deactivation but still have four months after that to add credit to reactivate the phone if you don't. But when I got to Spain I was over the 6 months but not the 10 months but the number that had not been used for 6 months had disappeared from my online account and there was therefore no way to add credit. Oddly the SIM was not shown as decativated when I turned the phone on and could still scan for networks but then then Orange/Simyo would not let the SIM log on to it. This is a shame since it qualifies for the 500MB of data for 5 Euros per month tariff. Has anyone else experienced Simyo deleting SIM cards from online accounts that should still be able to be kept active under their stated rules for SIM card use and what further thoughts (if any) do people have about Voip use on the various Spanish mobile data networks.

	(#5)
Capvermell (Offline) Junior Member Newbie Posts: 2 Join Date: 31 Oct 2010 Country:	31-10-2010, 08:47 I have an English friend of mine (I am also from the UK) who has just moved out to Spain indefinitely (may be permanently) and is living in a place with no phone line. Of course being a non techie they just went for the heavily marketed option of a Movistar Pay As You Go SIM card for just phone calls. They also weren't aware of services like www.18185.co.uk for their friends in England to call the Spanish mobile more cheaply than the extortionate BT Spanish mobile rates. They clearly need to have both a mobile data connection and use SIP for phone calls so that English friends can call them using a UK SIP phone number (ie with Sipgate). I am also recommending that they get a Lebara Movil SIM to make calls to UK landlines when they are out and about or in case their mobile data connection fails when they are at home. However from the discussion above there seems to be no guarantee that SIP or other Voip use will continue working on simyo (which looks the best option for now if you need to use more than 1GB per month which is surely likely during the upcoming winter months) so all I can do is recommend they go for Simyo and then review the position if they ever block Voip use. Ultimately they may move to an apartment that has a landline and have an ADSL connection but this may not be for several months. Where they are living now is rent free but it is likely to be put up for sale but the sale could easily take a year or more to go through and the costs of putting in a phone line on such an unknown short term basis are probably not worthwhile. Is the only option to go for Simyo and hope they don't block Voip use? Speaking of simyo I also don't understand their terms and conditions for keeping the SIM working as I bought two of their SIM cards last summer (2009) in August and their rules seem to say that you need to make a call every 6 months to avoid deactivation but still have four months after that to add credit to reactivate the phone if you don't. But when I got to Spain I was over the 6 months but not the 10 months but the number that had not been used for 6 months had disappeared from my online account and there was therefore no way to add credit. Oddly the SIM was not shown as decativated when I turned the phone on and could still scan for networks but then then Orange/Simyo would not let the SIM log on to it. This is a shame since it qualifies for the 500MB of data for 5 Euros per month tariff. Has anyone else experienced Simyo deleting SIM cards from online accounts that should still be able to be kept active under their stated rules for SIM card use and what further thoughts (if any) do people have about Voip use on the various Spanish mobile data networks.