3G in Portugal, France, Spain

[gatvol]

We are taking the Cali to Portugal, France and Spain this year.

Is there a good mobile broadband solution for these countries so I can cost effectively use my iPad, browse the net etc. I will not be Downloading large files and could go to a coffee shop with wifi if I need to do this

We have Samsung S3 mini phones. These can be used as wifi hotspots with iPads so I thought that pay as you go SIM cards would be the way to go

Any advice gratefully received

Thanks

 

[Martin]

Currently using the Three Europass in France, costs £5 per day but it is unlimited data for a 24 hour period and the speed has been better than some places back in UK.

It is available in all EU countries. It sounds expensive but it does end up working out cheaper than buying a local SIM for each country which is what I used to do.

 

[Confuserated]

Wow! That's £150 a month!

Surely there's got to be a more cost effective method, it only costs £30 a month for unlimited at home!

 

[TwentyOneThirtyFive]

A dataroam or Europa sim?

http://www.dataroam.co.uk/pages/interna ... -sim-cards

http://www.europasim.com/en_GB

 

[BerndRos]

iPad is unlocked

So get a local pre paid sim.....

 

[KernowLad]

We had a package with O2 that gave us 15MB a day for about a quid - yes it didn't go far but it was enough to check emails, etc. For bigger stuff, we found wifi - most campsites have it.

Coverage was generally quite good in France and Spain.

 

[briwy]

Just for info a 3g enabled Kindle will work in most countries without extra charge and can be used for basic web surfing and webmail.
Strangely though works fine in Columbia and Peru but not in the Isle of Man.

 

[coordinated]

France seems to be one of the most awkward countries in which to buy a pre-paid SIM, as every French SIM must be registered within 14 days of being used, or the line will be terminated.

Like KernowLad, I think roaming's reasonably cost-effective for short trips, though per-day caps are still more of a pain than per-month ones - and going over the quota by even a few MB gets real expensive, real quick :x

I've previously used Orange UK's £3 for 30MB per day, and tethered my (wifi-only) iPad to my iPhone. It ended up being fine, but Orange's website/app didn't correctly show the bundle I was on (so I was always nervous I was going to come home to a mahoosive bill), and 30MB never ended up being enough (at least, not to relax and not constantly toggle roaming on and off, which is a faff on an iPhone). Orange have just announced an increase to 100MB per day; if they'd done that before the summer, I wouldn't have bothered doing the following...

As we're only going to France, and I wanted a data-only SIM for a mifi device so that we could tether our his+hers iPads to it :lol: , I've opted for:

• an unlocked Huawei mifi
• a SIM from LeFrenchMobile

The SIM card itself is free (unlike many others) and comes with €40 credit (of unlimited duration) which can then exchanged for data bundles. They require you to post (to a French address) or email your photo ID to them (not super-happy about emailing a photo of my driving license!) to register your SIM - but only once you've activated it by connecting to the network.

I'll let you know how I get on

Cheers,
Steve

PS I'm aware that you can "just buy" an Orange.fr data SIM (on their new "Let's go" tariff, which has replaced the older Mobicarte one), but:

• we're trying to stay away from large towns, and don't want to waste time in a mobile phone shop
• my French isn't good enough
• you allegedly need proof of residency (sometimes), and I'm not going to lie and give a fake address, and as we're holidaying nomads we don't have a hotel (or even a campsite!)
• I found lots of comments saying how infuriatingly slow and unhelpful Orange.fr processes/staff were

 

[coordinated]

Here are some articles I found helpful in deciding which one to get:

• Wiki page summarising the pre-paid SIM options
• Advice on networks, SIMs
• Telegraph article
• TripAdvisor article with helpful comments, and another
• Lonely Planet article

 

[coordinated]

Some pre-paid providers:

• LeFrenchMobile - no need to return the SIM, and the credit doesn't expire. Credits look like a cheap and flexible way of topping up.
• Dataroam - register a SIM and return it to them afterwards. £39 for 1GB of (3G) data for 30 days (add £10 for a cheap mifi).
• 0044 - register a SIM and return it to them afterwards. £49 for 3GB (unlimited) data for 1 month.
• PrePaidSIMCard - no longer covers France
• WifiShop - appeared to be a grey importer (they have an equivalent eBay page), selling registered French SIMs with 100MB for £35 and top-up vouchers (£20 for 1GB for 1 month).

 

[Martin]

Also check which operator the SIM card is on as some have better 3G coverage than others, BYTEL seem to have very good 3G even in some quite rural area's, last year we were using Orange France and some campsites we could not even get a data connection.

Don't forget, in France nearly all campsites offer WiFi and it is normally free, I have also seen an increase in people using signal boosers on site aswell similar to this:

http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/35083059 ... 80&ff14=66

 

[coordinated]

Also check which operator the SIM card is on as some have better 3G coverage than others, BYTEL seem to have very good 3G even in some quite rural area's, last year we were using Orange France and some campsites we could not even get a data connection.

Good point. LeFrenchMobile say they primarily use Orange (and am hoping as Orange have been adding lots of H+ (3.9G) lately that it'll get better).

Don't forget, in France nearly all campsites offer WiFi and it is normally free, I have also seen an increase in people using signal boosers on site

My frustration with on-site wifi is that it's often down (and no-one knows how to fix it, or even cares), it's usually massively oversubscribed, and you need to re-auth every time you connect Here's hoping the French campsites we find are better than a lot of UK ones :lol:

 

[Martin]

My frustration with on-site wifi is that it's often down (and no-one knows how to fix it, or even cares), it's usually massively oversubscribed, and you need to re-auth every time you connect Here's hoping the French campsites we find are better than a lot of UK ones :lol:

Very true Steve, I am sitting by the bar now and wifi is very fast but come 8pm when all the kids are up here on Facebook, youtube etc... It comes to a standstill, only problem is when it is free it is difficult to complain.

 

[Andy]

You can always go to Macdonalds & use their free wifi while you have a cup of coffee, good for checking email & light browsing.

 

[Trotty]

Went to frnce in June, 3mobile have £5 a day deal that allows you to use unlimeted data. It was handy as it allowed s to stream radio when on route! Wouldn't allow tv though...

 

[addie]

Hello,

I was pointed to this thread by a forum member who said I might be able to offer some advice. We spend a significant amount of time in Europe in our Motorhome and it was on the back of that we set up our business helping fellow motorhomers / campers stay connected.

We've written a blog post which compares all of the existing UK providers roaming packages along with the best roaming plans (we're the UK agent for EuropaSIM, mentioned earlier in this thread) so you can find out easily what your existing operator charges.

You can find that information here:
www.motorhomewifi.com/blog/update-to-eu ... gust-2013/

There is also a lot of talk about France on this thread and so it might be of interest that FON has recently teamed up with the largest French telecom provider SFR. This means that now there are a growing number of 'SFR-with-FON' hotspots in France as there are 'BTWiFi-with-FON' hotspots in the UK.

If you're not a BT Broadband Customer then you can become part of the FON network and use all of the UK/EU hotspots by purchasing a Fon Box. This isn't something we sell, but more information on how it works is available here:
www.motorhomewifi.com/blog/easier-inter ... home-wifi/

Principally we want to give advice and we frequently tell customers not to buy something / buy something elsewhere if we don't think it's the right product for them. If there is a product we sell which is of use, then great, but I don't think we're particularly good sales people!

Hope this information is of use

Adam & Sophie
Motorhome WiFi
Also see our travel blog here: http://www.europebycamper.com

 

[BerndRos]

Hi you two.....

Like the latest re Slovenia......

I was in touch with as I did my 15 month trip round Europe and Africa etc....

Regards

Kevin

 

[coordinated]

I'll let you know how I get on

The LeFrenchMobile SIM worked perfectly.
Their website doesn't make it clear that (as with any French SIM) you need to register the SIM within 14 days of first using it, by emailing/posting your photo ID and home address details to them. Not a big pain, and hopefully I'll only need to do it once (I'd I can keep the SIM going), but it added to the faff.

But in the end, like KernowLad, I resorted to using roaming data on my iPhone more than the mifi – mostly because I always had my phone with me. Useful to have a choice between nibbling slowly through a 500MB LFM monthly package and gobbling through a daily limit. Glad that Orange have correctly charged me £3/day (ex VAT!) – not bad for 100MB/day.

Will try the mifi out when we stay longer on a particular site with a Three SIM in it…

Really glad we had data for helping us to find campsites (makes it much easier just to take off and plan on the fly) … and for those times when Google Translate was needed

Steve

 

[gatvol]

I have an o2 pay monthly phone.

Getting this unlocked so I can use it on any network was quite easy to do online and took 24 hours for 02 to send me the 8 digit unlock code you have to input on a Samsung s3 mini.

I have been advised that I need to change APN settings when I insert a foreign sim card. Is this right please ? Has anyone done this ?

Thanks

 

[gatvol]

I ended up getting a Europa SIM from motorhomewifi.com which after some teething problems was excellent, working very well in France/ Spain/ Portugal.

Changing the phone's settings on a Samsung phone is very easy. But you MUST take care. I switched UK v Europa sims in my phone when I wanted data access - but for the reasons below I would advise against this unless you are very happy messing about with mobile phone settings.

These mobile phone networks are clever b@stards who in my opinion try to trick you. They achieve this as the actual sim is Vodafone italia. But it also works on Omitel. My phone had two data settings - one for domestic use (ie Italy) and one for roaming. It is critical that you set these two correctly

Also, you need to turn off data BEFORE you remove the Europa sim. Otherwise when you put your UK sim back in whilst abroad it will immediately start consuming expensive UK data

If you get any of these simple steps wrong, your device will happily work away, but will eat very expensive data. I went through an expensive learning exercise of getting these settings correct and the motorhomewifi.com people were very helpful at responding to my plea for help from Portugal

Topping up is quick and easy

With hindsight I wish that I had followed the motorhomewifi.com advice of buying their dongle as I blew more in wasted airtime than the dongle would have cost. If you buy their dongle I don't think that you can get the Vodafone italia v omnitel settings wrong. With a dongle there is no need to swap SIMS either

 

[reserves]

Any updates to this thread?

Looking for a Sim Card for France. Already get free access for mobile from Three.

However looking for a option that will allow tethering or work via a MiFi option for my laptop.

 

[BerndRos]

You could get a 3 data sim and they will give you a free mifi device...5.50£ a month for 1GB a month......

 

[reserves]

Thanks, but need a lot more data for work.

Was thinking more of getting a French SIM rather than taking one over from the UK

 

[reserves]

Actually 1gb should be enough (or 2 ) I'll look into it.

Thanks

 

[reserves]

7GB for £25 sounds good to me with Three

Cheers