Mobile broadband whilst in Spain

stefano

I am going on a holiday in Spain. I have an autistic son, who like to watch videos on youtube, and the internet at the hotel who cost a fair bit. I have a 3 dongle, does anyone know if a pre-paid mobile internet sim card can be purchased at reasonable cost, where and how? I know it's possible here, with 3 I have 3 Gb for 3 months, for £8.95.
Your assistance will, as ever, be greatly appreciated.

stilltheone

It's much more expensive in Spain and your modem won't work unless you unlock it. Since YouTube and the like may use a fair bit of bandwidth, that could prove expensive too.
Also, who knows if 3G is available in that location...

There are prepaid options, but you'll have to call to check coverage. I hope they can speak English.

Orange 3.5 euros per day(250MB of data usage)

There is also Yoigo, Vodafone and Movistar.

mchale

http://www.torrevieja.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=79661 ?????

paddyrg

stilltheone wrote: »

3.5 euros per day(250MB of data usage)

Just be aware 250MB is about 30 mins of video at halfway decent quality.

Take a DVD player and some DVD's? It'll save you a fortune.

stilltheone

paddyrg wrote: »

Just be aware 250MB is about 30 mins of video at halfway decent quality.

Take a DVD player and some DVD's? It'll save you a fortune.

Not quite, as we are talking about YouTube. I would estimate it at around 75MB for 30 minutes, at the lower end.

paddyrg

stilltheone wrote: »

Not quite, as we are talking about YouTube. I would estimate it at around 75MB for 30 minutes, at the lower end.

If we work it out, then any feed at 1Mbps for 30 mins (1800s) is 225MB - I think the lowest bitrate of the oldest youtube vids was a little over 310kbps (incl audio), so that'll be the 75MB figure you mention :-) It applies only to the lowest quality/FLV streams, all their other streams start at 0.5Mbps (upto a cracking 5Mbps!) so for anything encoded for anything other than the oldest flash profile, 30 mins will be 150MB upto the (frankly excessive) 1.5GB mark (H.264 1920x1080, High Q encoding).

If the autistic son can keep to the smallest streams (eg 360p at 0.5Mbps) then that's maybe 45 mins/day.

slyracoon

Paying for the hotel wireless will be cheaper and easier than trying to use 3G in spain. There may not even be any 3G signal where your going.

vikingaero

If you use Firefox you can use something like Flashgot to grab YouTube movies at home and download FLV Player to play them later.

stilltheone

paddyrg wrote: »

If we work it out, then any feed at 1Mbps for 30 mins (1800s) is 225MB - I think the lowest bitrate of the oldest youtube vids was a little over 310kbps (incl audio), so that'll be the 75MB figure you mention :-) It applies only to the lowest quality/FLV streams, all their other streams start at 0.5Mbps (upto a cracking 5Mbps!) so for anything encoded for anything other than the oldest flash profile, 30 mins will be 150MB upto the (frankly excessive) 1.5GB mark (H.264 1920x1080, High Q encoding).

If the autistic son can keep to the smallest streams (eg 360p at 0.5Mbps) then that's maybe 45 mins/day.

Some of the packages only offer 100MB per day. Ulp!

flexrider

Depending on where you are off in spain (Milan for example) there are a few bars which offer free wi-fi access but if you dont have access i would suggest checking here as i am in europe also and had to find a few spots since i been here for wii fi access, depending on where you are may find something

http://www.wififreespot.com/europe.html

stilltheone

flexrider wrote: »

Depending on where you are off in spain (Milan for example) there are a few bars which offer free wi-fi access but if you dont have access i would suggest checking here as i am in europe also and had to find a few spots since i been here for wii fi access, depending on where you are may find something

http://www.wififreespot.com/europe.html

Milan is in Spain??