Any alternatives to EuropaSim for heavy data usage in Europe?

BiggaThanBen

Hi

With EuropaSim being out of stock everywhere, is there a close alternative which would allow to consume around 50-200mb per day while in Europe (Germany, Croatia, Italy) at a similar cost ?

I am with t-mobile and they have some data boosters, but the information they give is confusing:
http://explore.ee.co.uk/roaming/t-mobile/croatia: £1 per 20MB (EURO - Internet Travel Booster 20MB) - which is OKish price
but here http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/boosters/eurobroadband/ it is £5 for 20MB, which is expensive.

Also there is http://www.dataroam.co.uk/products/european-data-sim-card-mifi, which is supposed to be cheaper than mainstream mobile providers but costs roughly the same as the 1st booster from t-mobile - £0.8 per 20Mb

I would surely go for EuropaSim at €3 for 500Mb + calls, but sadly it is out of stock till the end of August.

What would be the best option for me ?

Thanks

NiftyDigits

BiggaThanBen wrote: »

Hi

With EuropaSim being out of stock everywhere, is there a close alternative which would allow to consume around 50-200mb per day while in Europe (Germany, Croatia, Italy) at a similar cost ?

I am with t-mobile and they have some data boosters, but the information they give is confusing:
http://explore.ee.co.uk/roaming/t-mobile/croatia: £1 per 20MB (EURO - Internet Travel Booster 20MB) - which is OKish price
but here http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/boosters/eurobroadband/ it is £5 for 20MB, which is expensive.

Also there is http://www.dataroam.co.uk/products/european-data-sim-card-mifi, which is supposed to be cheaper than mainstream mobile providers but costs roughly the same as the 1st booster from t-mobile - £0.8 per 20Mb

I would surely go for EuropaSim at €3 for 500Mb + calls, but sadly it is out of stock till the end of August.

What would be the best option for me ?

Thanks

For T-Mobile; the first is for Mobile telephones, the second for Mobile Broadband.

You can use 3's Feel At Home for Italy.

BiggaThanBen

NiftyDigits wrote: »

For T-Mobile; the first is for Mobile telephones, the second for Mobile Broadband.

You can use 3's Feel At Home for Italy.

In the second link it has both, I cited the prices from the Euro Internet Boosters (for your phone) section. Also it doesn't include Croatia there, so I am thinking it might just be an outdated page there.

I considered Three, but just for one country I could as well purchase a local SIM. I am trying to find a solution that would work in most European countries.

NiftyDigits

EURO - Internet Travel Booster 20MB
20MB OF DATA TO USE FOR 24 HOURS
20MB
£1
EURO - Internet Travel Booster 100MB
100MB OF DATA TO USE FOR 24 HOURS
100MB
£3

is correct for T-Mobile.

redux

Orange Spain SIM, tariff called Mundo with add-on option called Go Europe

100 MB a day for one euro a day, in all EU/EEA countries

http://movil.orange.es/tarifas/desde-el-extranjero/go-europe/
http://en.orange.es/mobile-service-plans/roaming/go-europe/ English version

SIMs on eBay UK, or the same seller has its own website with slightly better prices


Other choices in my post here but I think that Orange Spain is the best for your projected usage

BiggaThanBen

redux wrote: »

Orange Spain SIM, tariff called Mundo with add-on option called Go Europe

100 MB a day for one euro a day, in all EU/EEA countries

http://movil.orange.es/tarifas/desde-el-extranjero/go-europe/
http://en.orange.es/mobile-service-plans/roaming/go-europe/ English version

SIMs on eBay UK, or the same seller has its own website with slightly better prices


Other choices in my post here but I think that Orange Spain is the best for your projected usage

Thanks a lot, that looks great.

I've checked eBay and there are only Spanish-only Orange Mundo sim cards at £14.50 (€15.95 on the seller's own website) - are these the correct ones, can you get this add-on added there without much hassle later on ?

Also are there any pitfalls with these ? You only get charged for the days when you use data/calls, right ? The only thing I saw is that you need to top-up it once a year to keep active.

redux

That's the one.

You can book the add-on yourself, just once, then it automatically charges only on the days it's used.

If you press the activate it now button on the Orange page I linked to, a pop-up box tells you:

You can activate Go Europe (IMPORTANT: before you do this, your roaming service needs to be activated*):

. Sending a text message to 22095 with the text “ALTA DIA”.

. Via your customer service area.

. By calling customer service at 470 (if you are calling from an Orange line) or +34 656001470 if you are calling from a line which is not Orange). Zone 1 fees are applied to these calls.

. In an Orange shop.

Activation fee: 0 €

* You can check whether your roaming service is activated, via your customer area. If it is not, you can activate it, also via your custoemr area, calling customer service or in an Orange shop

NiftyDigits

Also could be useful to me, as I already have an active Orange Espana SIM. It doesn't have to be a Mundo SIM in the case of you not being able to find one.

NonGeographicalMan

I also have an Orange Spain SIM on the SIM Mundo tariff but Go Europe can also be activated on all their PrePay SIM cards for free.

Currently I am stuck in a vilage in Scotland with a broken down car that only has Vodafone coverage so my Tesco Mobile SIM (O2 network) is no use to me. But my Orange Spain SIM is working great on Vodafone and my call use history shows the 1 Euro per day gives free calls of up to 60 minutes total across all calls (no sneaky rounding up per minute or anything on each individual call and no ripoff call connection fees unlike back in Spain) to both UK landlines and UK mobiles. This is impressively good value when the SIM Mundo allows calls to UK landlines from Spain for only 1 cent per minute (but with 35 cent connection per call) but charges 8 cents per minute to UK mobiles.

The only trouble I am having with my SIM Mundo on Go Europe is that the data side just refuses to work. I am sure this is to do with the Internet Type settings in the APN as I had a lot of trouble before on this with Ovivo with this handset (Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro). With Ovivo the Tweakker App sorted it out and used default, supl, dun, fota. However this is not working for Orange Spain and Tweakker can't get a result.

I am sure this is a teething issue of some kind with my account set up.

I will be emailing my high level contact in the Orange Spain marketing department as the one down side of Orange Spain is that ordinary customer service No Speaker Der English senor and also will not speak to me in my tourist Spanish. They instead try to get you to call their 90 support line which costs somthing outrageous like 68 cents per minute plus 25 cents connection and the outsourced workers on it are still completely clueless if you choose to waste your money with them.

Can't beat Orange Spain for value for money though. We have made a lot of use of theri SIM Mundo 2Gb data bundle for only 15 Euros for a month's access this summer as the shared wifi network at our apartment complex has been repeatedly non functional for many weeks at a time.

The Internet problem I am getting is also certainly specific to this phone which seems to have a lot of trouble with using the correct default Internet Type settings with any new APN. I also couldn't access the internet with the Orange Spain Sim when I was in Longyearbyen, Svaalbard in Norway a few weeks ago even though the phone calls deal again worked exactly as advertised.

Regarding using an Orange Spain SIM card as a foreigner there as a major issue with them only accepting Spanish credit and debit cards to top it up until the end of last year. However following my high level complaint to CEO level they now take the majority of UK debit cards but still no UK credit cards. I think they have a great fear of being able to fight charge back claims successfully on overseas cards after previous bad experiences with some non Spanish customers.

BiggaThanBen

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Regarding using an Orange Spain SIM card as a foreigner there as a major issue with them only accepting Spanish credit and debit cards to top it up until the end of last year. However following my high level complaint to CEO level they now take the majority of UK debit cards but still no UK credit cards.

Can't top up this card with either credit or debit cards, tried many times with different cards, always the same error.

Will probably top up via Spanish sim card seller's website, but for the future is there a way to make it working with UK cards ?

NonGeographicalMan

BiggaThanBen wrote: »

Can't top up this card with either credit or debit cards, tried many times with different cards, always the same error.

Will probably top up via Spanish sim card seller's website, but for the future is there a way to make it working with UK cards ?

I may be wrong about all non Spanish debit cards from other EU countries working but certainly I tried several UK credit cards in June in Spain and they were all refused despite an email from their marketing manager, Cristina Santos, in March this year claiming the issue with foreign cards was now resolved.

The UK debit card which did work in June and was accepted was a Metro Bank Mastercard debit card whereas all other uk banks who issue non Visa based debit cards rely on Maestro (a different payment platform for debit cards also part owned by Mastercard). I am about to top up my Orange Spain SIM with this MetroBank card again so if it works I will confirm it here. If it does can I suggest you apply for a Metro Bank card either online or in a branch as banking with them is completely free and it is easy to transfer money across instantly from any other UK account you may have using Faster Payments.