Prepaid DATA in Spain

[finisterre]

Originally Posted by petkow

Are you on an o2 contract back in the UK? If you are, you can still use your inclusive texts in Spain (back to the UK) on a 4:1 ratio.

I'm on T-Mobile. But thanks anyway.

[petkow]

Sorry... that was a stab in the dark! If you have a cheap local Spanish data plan, you could also consider using something like fishtext for cheap SMS back to the UK. (2p/SMS).

I take you've had a read through these pages already with regards to how to pick up a local Spanish SIM on an MVNO that gives you decent data rates? I think Masmovil is fairly decent these days. It's not too easy to find their SIM's in shops though. If you know what your address will be, you could also consider getting a Simyo SIM card delivered to you when you will be there. On Spanish prepaid SIM's, the cheapest SMS rates are with Yoigo (who charge you either 8 or 10c). Simyo, is not bad at 15c. There are some networks (e.g. Vodafone) that charge you as much as 69c!!

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by finisterre

I'm off to Menorca (Balearic islands) tomorrow for a week. would love to have a week's unlimited(ish) internet and reasonably priced texts to UK. Will need a SIM for my Nexus One phone rather than a dongle.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Just to report back-in Spain now for a few days. I got the Carrefour SIM on the first day, as planned. It is working out really well, and I am posting this from my Android phone while using it.

The only slight glitch was that it did not appear to have correct APN settings on it. Instead it had Orange APN. I added the Carrefour APN settings and then it worked fine. They forced me to buy a €10 top-up when buying the €5 SIM. I am not sure whether this is mandatory? It didn't bother me as I am in spain for 10 days and €1 per day for 10 days is exactly €10.

Orange coverage seems great, so other Orange MVNOs are probably good also. However, some only sell on Web for delivery to Spanish address - Carrefour can he picked up at any Carrefour store.

[petkow]

Hi Drama Queen. Thanks for the feedback. Carrefour is indeed quite a useful one as there are so many of their shops and associates around which means that picking up a SIM is a lot easier than many of the other MVNO's. I am glad it worked out so well for you. I also have had no significant problems lately with coverage on Orange. They are improving all the time. Also interesting to know that Carrefour have no problems with VoIP usage. I think this is the same on most of the other MVNO's that use Orange (e.g. I know on my Simyo I have no problems). Movistar is the other network that also has no VoIP restrictions.

I used to have a Carrefour SIM but a long time ago. Was the Carrefour SIM that you got on the data tariff a normal Voice SIM as well? (i.e. could you make and receive calls?) The only downside that I can see with Carrefour is the 3 euro minimum monthly spend requirement. In practice, this would mean that visitors who only visit Spain once or twice a year cannot feasibly maintain their cards but would have to pick up a new SIM every time.

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by petkow

Hi Drama Queen. Thanks for the feedback. Carrefour is indeed quite a useful one as there are so many of their shops and associates around which means that picking up a SIM is a lot easier than many of the other MVNO's. I am glad it worked out so well for you. I also have had no significant problems lately with coverage on Orange. They are improving all the time. Also interesting to know that Carrefour have no problems with VoIP usage. I think this is the same on most of the other MVNO's that use Orange (e.g. I know on my Simyo I have no problems). Movistar is the other network that also has no VoIP restrictions.

I used to have a Carrefour SIM but a long time ago. Was the Carrefour SIM that you got on the data tariff a normal Voice SIM as well? (i.e. could you make and receive calls?) The only downside that I can see with Carrefour is the 3 euro minimum monthly spend requirement. In practice, this would mean that visitors who only visit Spain once or twice a year cannot feasibly maintain their cards but would have to pick up a new SIM every
time.

The Carrefour SIM is intended for use in their Dongle, and I think it is meant to be data only. They also sell it with a dongle, and in this case the dongle software probably automatically installs the correct APN.

I have not tried making a voice call - I am afraid it might switch me to a voice tariff or burn my credit on an expensive per minute tariff. I tried an incoming call but it didnt work.

It doesn't bother me as VOIP works and I also have my home SIM.

The great thing about this SIM is €1 for 100MB per day-that gives me all the web, email & VOIP I need plus GPS switched on all the tome streaming Google maps, and some Radio streaming. So far I am hitting around 40MB per day-well within quota.

[inquisitor]

I've just realized, that másmovil have discontinued their monthly flatrate for € 20. Now they only offer data packs of 1 GB (€ 14.90/month) and 300 MB (€ 5/month) with exceeding traffic being charged with € 0.03/MB for both tariffs (see: Total movilidad y ahorro con la tarifa modem USB internet movil).
Their customer care is also disastrous. Having sent all registration information including my scanned password 3 days ago to datos@masmovil.es, my SIM has still not been activated yet and after calling customer care yesterday and today I was promised callbacks from an English speaking operator twice, which I haven't received yet either.
It took me days to find a másmovil SIM during my last vacation at Gran Canaria and now before I got to use it prices have increased dramatically and I can't even activate the SIM card. Perhaps prices will come down again after the holiday season.

[august]

Originally Posted by august

Petkow, thank you for you feedback!

regards,
August

Finally got second hand 2 yoigo and 1 simyo prepaid sim cards from other travellers and now starting to cope with the network codes and tariffs to get some solution for September. Hope the search button help me withinh this forum

regards,

[august]

Originally Posted by august

Finally got second hand 2 yoigo and 1 simyo prepaid sim cards from other travellers and now starting to cope with the network codes and tariffs to get some solution for September. Hope the search button help me withinh this forum

regards,

Simyo , Yoigo

1. hash codes to check the current tarrif on SIM kindly welcomed
2. hask codes to change the current tarrif to other also welcomed


regards,
august

[flyfisher]

Originally Posted by drama queen

Just to report back-in Spain now for a few days. I got the Carrefour SIM on the first day, as planned. It is working out really well, and I am posting this from my Android phone while using it.

The only slight glitch was that it did not appear to have correct APN settings on it. Instead it had Orange APN. I added the Carrefour APN settings and then it worked fine. They forced me to buy a €10 top-up when buying the €5 SIM. I am not sure whether this is mandatory? It didn't bother me as I am in spain for 10 days and €1 per day for 10 days is exactly €10.

Orange coverage seems great, so other Orange MVNOs are probably good also. However, some only sell on Web for delivery to Spanish address - Carrefour can he picked up at any Carrefour store.

Hi Drama Queen or anyone else that knows - this sounds very interesting as I am off to Menorca in a few weeks. However I have been many times but never come across a Carrefour shop or supermarket. Can you let me know where the shops are?? Additionally are the APN settings inside the data sim pack? What speeds were you getting?? You mention 100mb per day and the £1.00 per day top-up. Would you be kind enough to explain the costs more? Many thanks in anticipation.

[drama queen]

The stores are in most cities and major towns in mainland Spain. There is a map on their website.

Hipermercados Carrefour

It looks like there might not be a store on Menorca - I think the nearest one might be on Mallorca?

The APN settings were not in the SIM pack. Normally these should be stored on the SIM. Instead the SIM had APN settings for Orange - the network that Carrefour is hosted on. These didn't seem to work - so I simply went into the APN menu on my phone and set up an additional APN for Carrefour. Just add an APN with the following settings - NAME=Carrefour, APN=carrefourinternet.

The SIM is probably designed for use in Carrefour dongles - and these probably automatically set up the APN. I was using the SIM in my phone, so I had to set up the APN manually.

I didn't pay too much attention to the speeds - in general they were good in the cities and towns, and sometimes slower in very rural areas. I was mainly web-browsing, emailing, streaming Google maps and listening to streamed radio sometimes - all of these were fine in all 5 places where I was staying. I also used VOIP and it was mostly ok - sometimes a little choppy - but this is normal when you do VOIP over 3G. Carrefour use Orange's network - so the coverage and speeds are probably the same as Orange.

100MBytes per day is the cap on downloading. I never went above 40MBytes any day - so 100MBytes was fine for me. Every day that you use the Internet, €1 will be deducted from your credit. The minimum top-up seems to be €5, although they asked me to put in €10 when I bought the SIM. Hence the cost works out at €1 per day, but the minimum that you can initially buy is 10 days.

Let me know if you have any other questions.