Anything better than 3 ‘Feel at Home’?

stg123

Hi,

I’m going travelling for three months and I’d planned to buy the 3 £15 add-on for three months and use that to get ‘unlimited’ data whilst I’m away.

I’ll be in a few Feel at Home locations (US, France, Spain, Australia), but I see the deal has now changed and it’s £20/month for 12GB of data.

In the past there wasn’t anything that competed with the 3 deal, but it doesn’t seem as good anymore.

Is there anything that’s a serious competitor, and maybe that covers Mexico?

J_B

Check the T&C's from 'feel at home'
I *think* that it only allows it to work for one month ??

boatman

http://www.argos.co.uk/m/static/Product/partNumber/1586468.htm
Then use Skype what's app etc. Can be topped up and used as normal phone sim.

12 month 12gb version
http://m.mymemory.co.uk/product?p=46338&

Just be aware that the data is throttled, so WiFi or local sim will faster data.

http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command=New,Kb=Mobile,Ts=Mobile,T=Article,varset_cat=roaming,varset_subcat=4157,Case=EXT(EM11925)

Frozen_up_north

As per the other replies, I would be wary of the T&Cs of Feel at Home. If you don't use the SIM in the UK between trips they may cancel your roaming after 1 or 2 months.

There are 3GB and 12GB data SIMs on eBay for around £9.99 and £24.99 respectively. They last for 3 and 12 months... I don't know if you could activate a fresh one while in a feel at home country.

My OH and myself pop over to Spain regularly to visit relatives (3 times so far this year) and find 3's Feel at Home is OK for phone calls and SMS texting, but data is very variable. Sometimes it's excellent, around 5 or 8 Mb/s, other times it's too slow to load a basic web page. It's certainly not reliable enough for Skype calls. We visit the Torrevieja area. There are small bars and some shopping areas where you can use free WiFi without the hassle of registering, just ask the bar staff for the password. Data rates in small bars can be good, but in popular centres, such as La Zenia, it can be quite slow.

If you want street level mapping, that stores the maps on your device, ie no data needed while using the maps, see the maps.me App. In Spain the maps show the boundaries of villas, their swimming pools and trees! Amazing detail and totally free. There are maps for most countries too.

I have no experience of roaming in the other countries mentioned.

Don't forget to run a VPN service if you want to use a free WiFi for anything serious... Open WiFi is very insecure... I use a free one called "Hexatech" by Betternet on my iPhone.

stg123

Thanks for this.

Do data-only SIMs work OK in phones? The guy on Ebay told me not?

TheBigBad

I regularly take advantage of Feel At Home in USA and whilst its great for calls and texts, the 3G/4G speed leaves a lot to be desired. I tested my o2 sim on my iPad to compare speeds and that was rapid, just too expensive to use it for 2 weeks.

Frozen_up_north

stg123 wrote: »

Do data-only SIMs work OK in phones? The guy on Ebay told me not?

Data SIMs do not work in phones, likewise phone SIMs won't work in dongles or MiFi devices.

BTW, I've just checked eBay for those data SIMs and prices seem to have shot up in the past day or two!

Would a 30 day rolling contract on a phone SIM be an alternative? Beware you might not be able to roam overseas initially as a new customer. Some of the 3 contract packages include a lot of data, up to 30 GB and even "unlimited", although I think to roaming is limited to 12 GB/month.

mchale

stg123 wrote: »

Thanks for this.

Do data-only SIMs work OK in phones? The guy on Ebay told me not?

I got 1 of the 3 12gb sim's and I'm using it in a moto g phone ok.

boatman

mchale wrote: »

I got 1 of the 3 12gb sim's and I'm using it in a moto g phone ok.

Are you using it for voice and text as well as data?

mchale

boatman wrote: »

Are you using it for voice and text as well as data?

Data only, haven't put any credit on it for voice/texts got it here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-3-PAYG-4G-Trio-Data-SIM-Pack-Preloaded-with-12GB-of-Data-Three-Sizes-/371598351562?hash=item5684fcdcca:g:ckAAAOSwH71XOc8K

stg123

Thanks mchale - do you know if it's even possible to put minutes/texts on it? Seeing as it's a data sim?

Now two sellers on Ebay have told me that data sims don't work in normal phones!