Cheap data roaming: Article discussion

buglawton

It's now getting to the point where for even a modest amout of roaming surfing, you will have to ditch your UK SIM and pop in one just for the trip. This applies to me as Virgin PAYG's data roaming add-on is laughably expensive.

What we need is a current list of good data roaming PAYG offers, but with a column attached listing the catches to watch out for if the SIM is intended to be temporary.

Ideally you want a nearly free SIM, top it up with say £15, this gets consumed with say £10 fixed price roaming deal and £5 roaming calls.

PS:
Regarding Switzerland mentioned above, Lebara has an apparently great deal called Lebara Surf: 5 Swiss francs (about USD 5) for 120 MB over 30 days. Not sure if there are any catches, but someone gave me a Lebara SIM he picked up in Switzerland and I'll try it on my next trip there.

http://www.lebara.ch/lebara-surf
(can change language of page to English)

lxd2

The[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] £[/FONT]10 per month option for the Vodafone Data Traveller is only available on contract.
On Pay as You Go the only option is[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] £[/FONT]2 per day.
I think this has changed since last year.

woodencupboard

I'm in France for 3 days, Switzerland for 3 days, then back in France for 3 days, hoping 50Meg through Tmobile for £10 will do it, only need it for a few google searches/web messages and google maps mainly.

sghughes42

Can anyone recommend a good solution for a Virgin Media smartphone for a holiday to Turkey in about 3 weeks?

My understanding is that Virgin don't offer data roaming outside the EU. They also appear to charge to have the phone unlocked but it isn't that expensive by the looks of it.

It may confuse things that the people I'll mainly be contacting will have Taiwanese mobiles. (If anyone knows any tricks for them it would be appreciated!)

We are planning on using the Sat Nav on the phone so while we will try and download maps in advance, having some data capacity that doesn't cost a bomb will always help.

NFH

sghughes42 wrote: »

Can anyone recommend a good solution for a Virgin Media smartphone for a holiday to Turkey in about 3 weeks?

Put a Turkish SIM card in your phone. Then you'll pay what locals pay instead of rip-off roaming charges.

orcadian

I'm going to Spain on holiday - Three told me they have a Euro internet pass which costs £5 per day on my iphone if I opt-in on a daily basis while I'm there. That limits all my data costs in any 24-hour period to £5. But it only covers data costs on my phone - not my laptop.
Laptop data on Three in Spain costs £1.28/MB though EU will cut this in July to 70 cents - but still expensive.
So for laptop maybe I should buy the "Tarjeta" at Carrefour - provided it works in Three MiFi (mobile WiFi dongle)? I hope my dongle isn't locked to Three.
Three should introduce Euro internet pass for broadband dongles as well as phones.

CockneyBrum

I'm paying 20p a meg in the USA right now with Truphone.Com compared to O2's outrageous £6 a meg. What a con and a highlights what a cash cow data roaming is for mobile operators.

april_fool

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.

ukflippy

I've done a fair bit of US travel recently, and originally picked up an AT+T SIM, paid about $40 for 100Mb/day for 30 days.

Now it seems to be $60, meaning I've moved to T-mobile. This costs $2 per day for unlimited data. The only issue with this is that T-mobile use an unusual 3G frequency (1700 MHz, W-CDMA IV), meaning you're limited to 2G data unless you have a US phone (not sure any UK ones will work at all - mine's pretty modern, but only supports W-CDMA I, II, V and VIII).

T-mobile's 2G actually seems faster than the 2G I get at home, meaning it's fine for maps, email, twitter, facebook - just no good for youtube!

They charge $10 for the SIM, but that's waived as long as you put $30 credit on the account.

I'd provide a link, but it seems I'm too new - the plan's called 'pay-by-the-day'

secretmachines

ukflippy wrote: »

I've done a fair bit of US travel recently, and originally picked up an AT+T SIM, paid about $40 for 100Mb/day for 30 days.

Now it seems to be $60, meaning I've moved to T-mobile. This costs $2 per day for unlimited data. The only issue with this is that T-mobile use an unusual 3G frequency (1700 MHz, W-CDMA IV), meaning you're limited to 2G data unless you have a US phone (not sure any UK ones will work at all - mine's pretty modern, but only supports W-CDMA I, II, V and VIII).

T-mobile's 2G actually seems faster than the 2G I get at home, meaning it's fine for maps, email, twitter, facebook - just no good for youtube!

They charge $10 for the SIM, but that's waived as long as you put $30 credit on the account.

I'd provide a link, but it seems I'm too new - the plan's called 'pay-by-the-day'

that's really interesting, thank you!
i'm off to the US for a week, in a couple of months and would love to be able to carry on using my phone as normal (for social media, check-ins, etc.) - but don't fancy the £60-odd bill I had last time!

do you have to pick up this t-mobile sim in the States, or can you get it in the UK?

I guess the pay-off is that you have to switch numbers for the time you're there.

edit - is it this one, the $2/day one?