Cheap data roaming: Article discussion

NFH

T-Mobile USA SIM cards are currently free.

m5rcc

april_fool wrote: »

I am going to Spain in a few week's time, and have rented a Mifi from www.tepwireless.com. It costs £3.27 a day (for total 1MB in 9 days), plus £1.95 a day if you want unlimited usage (cheaper if you are going for longer). If you pick up from Heathrow airport, it is free (otherwise quite a hefty delivery charge). Do a search for discount vouchers on-line aswell, as I got 10% off. It probably isn't as cheap as getting a local sim card, but it is far less hassle and the cost is fixed up front, so no nasty surprises when you get home!

I used this once before, and it is pretty good if there isn't good access to Wifi hotspots where you're going - you can carry it around as it is the size of a small mobile phone. It is particularly handy if you have a few devices - a couple of phones, an iPad and/or netbook/laptop.

For a three-week holiday, they wanted $285 for an unlimited service. Far too expensive. I'll stick to paying £48/mth on T-Mobile for unlimited.

jaffacat_2

im off to the USA for a week in April & Im currently on O2 pay monthly package. I need to be able to send texts & receive them, also would like (but not essential) the ability to use my phone to call home (if it is cheapr than using a landline)> any advice?b

Herongull

Use WiFi and Whatsapp for free?

brooza

I'm going to Thailand, Vietnam and Australia for 3 weeks (3 days each in Thailand and Vietnam and 2 weeks in Oz)

I'm thinking a local SIM would be best for Australia, but what would be the best option for the other 2 countries? I'm only really interested in using data (not a lot)

NiftyDigits

Your phone is important...
Nevertheless, SIMs and data packages are easy to obtain in OZ and Thailand. In Thailand expect to pay 49 to 69 baht for the SIM and then you can add a data packages that corresponds with your intended usage.
Vietnam I don't know, as I just used my free data roaming package on my Blackberry whilst there.

brooza

I've just remembered I've built up about £20 credit on on O2 sim (I just use it for free SMS to O2 numbers so never use the credit) and it's £6 a day, so that will do me for Vietnam, at least

pastabake

Im_just_careful wrote: »

I was in Spain in December and bought a Carrefour data SIM.

It cost 5 € and you can then top it up as you wish. Either at the time or in the store. It seems to cost approximately 1.2€ a day for up to 100 MB. If you go over 100MB it slows but doesn't entirely stop working.

I put it in a MiFi type device and our various WiFi enabled devices all worked well with it.

The only "challenge" was that it came with a PIN enabled (the pin was on the carrier the SIM came with) and it took a little while to work out how to turn the PIN off with the device I have.

Sadly, if you don't spend 3€ a month on it, as far as I can tell it stops working so I'll have to get a new one,

They photocopied my passport when I bought it, there seems to be a need for some form of identity with Spanish SIMs.

Other than my complete lack of Spanish there were no difficulties buying it.



I can see this thread has not been updated in a while, Im looking for a sim card for data in spain (canaries) would this be the better option for price/data amount ?

Is the 1gb plan not a better price over the 30days ? Is there any other data provider i maybe should consider, Im concerned that there is no carrefour in lanzarote to top up ect

thanks

jamiecox

hi, firstly if this is in the wrong place, apologies, please advise me where it should be posted?

ok, ive been with orange for 4 years, always been kind of happy with service and have gone over my contracted bill a handfull of times due to to much talktime or usage, all which have been justified by bills and my own usage. however since upgrading to a iphone 4s 3 months ago and downgrading my monthly contract but not getting less msgs, talktime or internet usage, every bill i have received has been way over my usual bills. i have rang orange and they told me to turn off data roaming in settings which i have so i will see if that makes a difference but what puzzles me is that i havent been abroad at all and i havent used my phone any more in the past 3 months than i have in the past 4 years so why the sudden increase in bills?

when i signed up to the phone upgrade the person from orange advising me told me that i had more than enough internet allowance and i will never go over, but by all accounts its my data charges that are taking my bill from £26.50 a month to nearly £80 some months??? please help, because if it keeps happening il be canceling the direct debit and then hiding from the debt collectors!!

thanks. jamie.

cvCA

jamiecox wrote: »

since upgrading to a iphone 4s 3 months ago and downgrading my monthly contract but not getting less msgs, talktime or internet usage, every bill i have received has been way over my usual bills. i have rang orange and they told me to turn off data roaming in settings which i have so i will see if that makes a difference but what puzzles me is that i havent been abroad at all and i havent used my phone any more in the past 3 months than i have in the past 4 years so why the sudden increase in bills?

If you don't live near a border, I don't see why it would be data roaming to blame. I don't know iphones well (I prefer rooted Android phones because you can control them more and stop them running up charges) and I left Orange years ago, but can you switch all data use off (Android has a control for this you can add as a widget or a button in the notification drawer) and are the bills itemised enough to show if the data charges were all on Orange or if they think you were abroad?

I suspect either your phone is doing stuff you don't want it to, or someone has found a nefarious way to bill roaming data to you.