Prepaid DATA in Spain

[lios727]

OK, both attempts seem to be there now, guess they got stuck somewhere . Can anyone shed any light on the movistar matter ?

[petkow]

Originally Posted by lios727

on a different matter : Movistar sells pre paid sim cards and somehow or other the shop says the normal Internet plans Movistar offers will not fit on this card, but that internet will be billed at 1 eur per mb. He states that my card will not support the same plan a dongle would (for which a separate pre paid card is available). Yet, when they try to sell the plan, they also try to sell you an iphone.
This sounds like absolute nonsense to me; can someone knowledgeable shed light on this ?

Sorry I cannot help much, but I do know for a fact that any of their "Tarifa Plana" (flatrate) plans are not available on prepaid but only available as add-on's to higher value contracts. This is actually quite normal for most mainstream operators.

But why on earth are you with Movistar? They have the least value data packages you can ever imagine. They are also an "absolute nonsense" company!

[lios727]

by accident, so I guess I'm screwed Can't even topup the thing via their internet site Ok, this will have to solve itself, off to the supermarket for vouchers.
Is there an agressive player in the spanish market who wants the tourist business and has the resources to deal with that ?

[petkow]

Originally Posted by lios727

Is there an agressive player in the spanish market who wants the tourist business and has the resources to deal with that ?

There are quite a few aggressive players but I am not sure if any really have the resources for the tourist market. I think masMovil with their English and German websites and a few multilingual customer service agents seem to be the most promising. Yoigo also have a few multi-lingual staff! To be honest, generally speaking, the rather large tourist business is catered to embarrassingly poorly out here!

[lios727]

is there a way we can speak non-publicly ? masmovil seems to be down all the time, at least from here . I would like to see if a business can be created

[8eaker]

Originally Posted by petkow

You will not be able to get them to deliver to the UK. I am not sure how many genuine sellers there are on ebay, but you may be lucky. Spanish SIM's tend to not be sold on ebay because of the compulsory registration issue. Best is to try and get a MasMovil SIM once when you are here, but the experience of another member on here recently suggested that they are not always easily available.

In terms of coming back again with the same SIM in the future, just remember that on the masMovil SIM you have a minimum obligation to spend 1 euro per month. (This is one of the reasons why personally I prefer the Simyo card that has no minimum spend requirement). On MasMovil, if you do not spend 1 euro in credit, (such as if you are back in the UK), it will just take this from your credit. After your credit gets to zero, you have 90 days to top up the SIM if you want to keep it active, or else it will be blocked for good.


What it boils down to is this. If you are planning on coming back again in 6 months, make sure you have at least 3 euros of credit left before you leave. 1 euro will be charged every month, and after 3 months your credit will go to zero. Once this happens, the clock will start ticking, and you have roughly another 3 months (90 days) to top it up again to reactivate the SIM. During those 3 months you do not need to be paying 1 euro a month (i.e. the account does not go negative).

Thanks for the advice.
The ebay seller states that you have to send a copy of your passport to masmovil in order to register and has been co-operative on my questions, so might be worth a go. Its £12 for a MasMovil SIM with 10 euro credit on it, so not such a big deal if it have to throw it away after my visit - just get another next year!
Can you confirm that the faxing/emailing of a passport scan would be what MasMovil would want to register and that a UK passport would be ok?

Whats the deal with Simyo? They don't expire as they don't have a minimum spend?
Thanks again

[laptopnomad]

Here's the deal with Yoigo in summer 2010:

Yoigo 3G PAYG prepaid internet in Spain

IData with their MoviData card is trying to get a share of the market by lowering the daily fee to € 1.50.

However it's not flat-fee. Above 100Mb they charge 6 eurocents / Mb. At 3G speeds it can ruin your prepaid balance in no time.

Cheers!

[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.

[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.

I am also heading to Spain tomorrow. I did a bit of research. Carrefour(supermarket chain like Tesco) have an MVNO on the Orange network. They appear to have a SIM for €1 per day up to a max of 100MB per day. That would give you 700MB for €7 for your week. Not bad. Orange seem to allow VOIP, unlike Vodafone or Movistar. The SIM is intended for dongles, but it should work in a phone, at least for incoming calls. It might not work for outgoing calls, unless you use VOIP. I intend to use it in my Android phone. I am not too bothered about voice, as I will put my home SIM in another phone, and I really want Internet for the Android.

Inicio > Internet Móvil > Carrefour Telecom

Most of the networks have deals for around €10 per month, but most of them force you to have a voice plan first - so expect to pay around €20 with the other networks.

[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.